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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26273815">Time in a Bottle</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fernandidilly_yo/pseuds/Fernandidilly_yo'>Fernandidilly_yo</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Umbrella Academy (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(Cause Reggie is a World Class Parent), (Hargreeves can no-longer keep track of all the timelines), Because they have been through a LOT the last decade, Canon-Typical Violence, Disassociation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everyone is more well-adjusted, Future Fic, Gen, Hargreeves as an Actual Family, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Made Up Science, Number Five | The Boy Has Issues, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Number Five | The Boy-centric, Panic Attacks, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Sibling Bonding, Touch-Starved, the year is 2025</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 05:56:16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>29,982</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26273815</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fernandidilly_yo/pseuds/Fernandidilly_yo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Five blinks away the dizziness that had enveloped him when they jumped and dazedly opens his eyes to a sight he hasn’t seen in years.</p><p>There is thick green grass pressed against his knees and a bright blue sky above his head. </p><p>And suddenly, Five can no longer breathe. </p><p> </p><p>(Or: A completely self-indulgent AU, where the Hargreeves rescue a fifteen-year-old Five from the apocalypse)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>346</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1068</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p><strong> Me @ myself this time last week- </strong> You do not need to write anything for The Umbrella Academy. You do <em> not. </em><br/><strong> Me right now- </strong> ¯\_(ツ)_/¯</p><p><strong> Disclaimer- </strong> I do not own the mess that is The Umbrella Academy.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Nights in the Apocalypse are so incredibly dense that the darkness seems to hold its own weight.</p><p>With the sky choked full of ash and smoke, the sun has been all but drowned out, not to mention the stars and moon.</p><p>Sometimes Five will spot the flickering of flames in the distance, but there are fewer and fewer fires now. Not like how it was when he first arrived here, when the world was on fire and Five had wondered if it would continue to burn until it left nothing but ash and cinders behind.</p><p>And as the fires continue to burn themselves out, the nights become denser and denser. So thick that sometimes Five finds himself choking on them, struggling to breathe with the weight of them settling over him.</p><p>Most nights Five can deal with the sensation of it, he can ignore the sense of nothingness around him, can push away the feeling of drifting without anything to tether him to the world, can pretend that he isn’t surrounded by an incomprehensible void.</p><p>Trapping him.</p><p>Pinning him down.</p><p>Suffocating him slowly.</p><p>But there are also those nights that Five can’t deal with it, can’t lay down and allow the darkness to envelop him, can’t let himself rest without the terrifying feeling of being absolutely <em>alone</em> washing over him in such a violent wave that Five thinks he might just drown underneath it.</p><p>Tonight, is one of those such nights.</p><p>Five wraps Dolores in her favorite fur-coat and walks them toward one of the still-burning fires. Far away enough that the smoke doesn’t get caught in his throat, but close enough to make out its light.</p><p>He rolls out his sleeping-bag and lays down across from Dolores, watching the flickering of the flames in the distance and wishing that it were the flickering of stars.</p><p><em>‘What’re you thinking about?’</em> Dolores asks in a whisper.</p><p>Five shrugs from his place on the ground. “Nothing in particular,” he murmurs.</p><p>Dolores doesn’t respond, probably because she knows that Five is lying but she isn’t willing to call him out on it. Not right now, while Five is tired and hungry and…something else he won’t let himself think about.</p><p><em>‘Sing me that song,’</em> she requests after another minute of silence. <em>‘Our song. The one I like.’</em></p><p>“I think you’ll find that I don’t have a particularly pleasant singing voice at the moment,” Five says, throwing a glance back at Dolores over his shoulder.</p><p><em>‘Oh, that’s not true,’</em> she coos at him, <em>‘I love it when you sing.’</em></p><p>Five sighs, rolling back over and glancing at the flickering flames across the street. It’s been a hard few days. His supplies are running low, so Five is spacing out his meals to accommodate.</p><p>He hasn’t eaten in almost four days, he feels lightheaded and drained from it. So hungry that the constant pain in his stomach has built up into a pounding headache and a stabbing sensation that sometimes knocks the breath straight from his lungs.</p><p>Dolores has been doing her best to distract Five throughout it all, to give him something else to focus on other than the inevitable.</p><p>Five has been scavenging the ruins of this city for over two years. It’s time to move on, to pack up and pick a direction, and start walking.</p><p>Five has been putting it off for weeks now. The thought of leaving makes him feel nauseated in a way that has nothing to do with starvation.</p><p>The city doesn’t even resemble the one he grew up in anymore, there’s no reason to feel attached or sentimental. The Academy is a pile of brick and stone, there’s nothing for him here.</p><p>But his brothers and sisters are buried in a row of too shallow graves that Five dug with his bare hands, and even though they aren’t alive anymore, it feels wrong to just…leave.</p><p>Five knows why, he knows why it feels so wrong.</p><p>It’s the same reason that there is an unoccupied space between where he buried Klaus and where he marked Ben’s empty grave.</p><p>Five takes in a shuddering breath and blinks back the pressure building up behind his eyes. “Fine,” he says to Dolores, shoving his thoughts away.</p><p>“If I could save time in a bottle,” he starts, words whispered, but so very loud with the utter silence around them. “The first thing that I’d like to do, is to save every day. ‘Til eternity passes away, just to spend them with you.”</p><p>His voice is muffled behind the scarf tied over his mouth and nose. It’s been a constant downpour of ash lately, the air burns like acid in Five’s lungs, stinging at his eyes and making his voice sound coarse and rough.</p><p>He hasn’t removed his goggles in days, hasn’t taken off his scarf in even longer.</p><p>Sometimes Five wonders what he must look like; dirty and malnourished, with layers of clothing draped over his scrawny frame to protect his skin against the pollution in the air, his dirty hair long and curling at the ends, grown enough to reach his shoulders.</p><p>Does he look like the sole survivor of an apocalyptic world, with fire in his heart and a mission worth fighting for? Or does he look like a boy slowly wasting away, losing the battle against the inescapable?</p><p>“If I could make days last forever,” Five continues, choking on the lyrics, his voice cracking, because he hates that line, he <em>hates it.</em> “If words could make wishes come true. I'd save every day, like a treasure, and then, again, I’d spend them with you.”</p><p>A breeze goes by, and with it, even more ash. Five watches it rain down with a sense of detachment. The flickering of flames and the smell of sulfur, ash falling down like snow as the shuffling of vermin scurrying across the dirt sounds from behind him. </p><p>These are what make up his world now, and Five can’t help but feel disconnected from it all.</p><p>There’s a word for that, Five knows. Dolores calls it ‘disassociation’, a coping mechanism. Five doesn’t like to acknowledge it, doesn’t like talking about it, because then he’d have to face the fact that his mind is starting to fracture.</p><p>Five’s mind isn’t allowed to fracture, his sanity isn’t allowed to crumble, because that’s all Five has left. It’s his mind, his brain, that will get him out of here. If he lets himself go insane than there is no hope, there is no chance of escape, and there will be no one left to save his family.</p><p>Five can’t let himself lose it, not for himself, but for them.</p><p>For his brothers and sisters.  </p><p>“But there never seems to be enough time, to do the things you want t’do, once you find them,” he mumbles, coughing dryly into his fist and clutching at his aching ribs with his other arm.</p><p>He bruised them a few days ago while scavenging. Five had blinked into a dilapidated house, expecting to land on solid ground, only to pop up at the top of a splintered staircase.</p><p>He’d tumbled down the stairs, spraining his wrist on the way down and bruising his ribs as well as his pride. Five had laid at the bottom of the staircase for a long while, blinking up at the concaved ceiling and waiting until the dizziness had faded back into something manageable.</p><p>It wasn’t one of his finer moments, but it wasn’t one of his worst either.</p><p>“I've looked around enough to know, that you're the one I want t’go through time with,” Five sings a bit louder, so Dolores will be able to hear, maybe even sing along if she gets the inclination.</p><p>His voice is scratchy and strained. It reminds Five of when they were twelve and Klaus had gotten his hands on a pack of cigarettes. When they had snuck out onto the roof to smoke one in the middle of the night.</p><p>Klaus had lit one up and handed it to Five in something like a dare. So Five had taken it without a word, not hesitating before he stuck it between his lips and took a deep pull.</p><p>The moment he did, Five’s nose had wrinkled up in disgust. He had held the cigarette away from himself as his eyes watered, forcing himself not to cough or splutter like an idiot.</p><p>He had held it in his lungs until he thought he could exhale without choking, and then he had turned watery eyes to Klaus and handed the cigarette back to his brother in a challenge.</p><p>Klaus had laughed at Five anyway, snickering behind his hands to keep the noise down, and laughing even harder when Five smacked at his shoulder.</p><p>Then Klaus had taken his own drag and immediately bent over and started hacking. Five had been caught between wanting to mock the other boy and wanting to shush him so they wouldn’t be found.</p><p>That’s what the air feels like now, like pulling in fire and smoke and letting it rot and fester in his lungs.</p><p>Five knows that it’s premature to make such promises to himself, but he swears that if…<em>when. </em>He swears that <em>when </em>he makes it back to society, that he will never touch another cigarette again.</p><p>“If I had a box just for wishes, and dreams that had never come true. The box would be empty,” <em>not true, not true, not true,</em> “except for the memory of how they were answered by you.” That’s Dolores’ favorite line, she whispers along with Five, her voice almost drowned out by the wind.</p><p>She says that this song is about them, about how they found each other even in this wasteland, about how they have all the time in the world to be together.</p><p>Dolores doesn’t mind the Apocalypse all that much. She doesn’t <em>like</em> it, but she had never known any different. She lived in the back of ‘Gimbels’ where all she saw were the daily shoppers and her friends, modeling the latest fashion, the same routine day in and day out.</p><p>The Apocalypse is the only taste of the outside world that Dolores has ever had, she doesn’t know what it was like, how it could be.</p><p>How incredibly desolate it is now.</p><p>She doesn’t miss the way that it was before, because she never <em>saw it. </em>Not the way that Five had, living on the fringes of the real world, dreaming about going out there someday.</p><p>Escaping the Academy and Reginald, running away with all his siblings in tow, off to build a new life of their own. Far, far, away, where their father could never touch them, where he would never find them.</p><p>Well, Five supposes he got his wish, in a way.</p><p>His father can’t reach him here in this place, he can’t do anything to Five, because he’s dead, along with the rest of humanity.  </p><p>Five is in the real world now, he got away.</p><p>He made his grand escape.</p><p>And just like the old man said, he wasn’t ready, isn’t ready, he will never, ever, be ready for the things he’s already lived through.</p><p>Five has a new wish now, one that he isn’t sure will ever come true.</p><p>He wants to take it back.</p><p>He wants to go back to that day and never jump.</p><p>He wants to go back and erase this from ever happening.</p><p>He wants to go back.</p><p>Please, <em>please,</em> let him go back.</p><p>“But there never seems to be enough time to do the things you want t’do, once you find ‘em,” Five sings, over a shuttering exhale. His chest is too tight, his eyes hurt, his head is throbbing.</p><p>He wants it to stop, he needs it to stop, why won’t this just stop?</p><p>Stop, <em>Stop, STOP!</em></p><p>“I've looked around enough to know, that you're the one I want t’go through time with,” he chokes out, pressing his palms against his goggles, wishing he could shove them into his eyes to stem the tears he can feel building.</p><p>Five’s heartbeat is pounding in his ears, the pressure in his head has left him dizzy and breathless. He tries to calm himself down, to listen to Dolores as she gently instructs him to take a deep breath in through his nose.</p><p>But the darkness is pressing in on him, and the silence is so intense it has become its own noise. Five can’t escape this. He wonders if he will ever leave this place, or if one day he’ll grow so tired of the weight of the world hanging over him, that he’ll take his rightful place between Klaus and Ben’s graves and just lay down.</p><p>Five lets out a choked sob, and he sort of hates himself for it.</p><p>If Five wasn’t so preoccupied with his mental breakdown, he might’ve noticed the shift in the darkness, the subtle change within the shadows.</p><p>But he doesn’t, not at first, not until he hears the scuffle of footsteps in the dirt.</p><p>Five shoots up from his sleeping-bag, head spinning and heart jackhammering in his chest. He pulls his knife from his boot and brandishing it out in front of him with a shaking hand, taking a stumbling step backward as he scans the blackness.</p><p>There are silhouettes surrounding him, six figures blanketed in darkness and slowly approaching.</p><p>“Wh– <em>what the hell?!”</em> Five blurts, taking another hasty step back and squinting at the closest shadow. He adjusts his grip on the hilt of his knife, it glimmers with the flickering of the flames behind him, glinting as Five holds it out in front of him.</p><p>The person nearest to Five has their hands held up in a sign of surrender, movements slow and cautious as they carefully walk toward Five. And then they are close enough to the dancing light that Five can make out their face.</p><p>Allison.</p><p>It’s <em>Allison.</em></p><p>“No,” Five chokes out. He suddenly has the intense urge to throw up, his stomach twisting.</p><p>Five stumbles backward, his knife wavering in his grip. “No,” he says again, his voice small and brittle sounding. “No, you’re <em>dead. </em>You’re not here.”</p><p>The five other figures finally come into the light, and though Five was expecting it, it still takes his breath away when he lays his eyes on the rest of his siblings.</p><p>They’re older than he remembers, the only time Five had seen them fully grown they had been cold and stiff on the ground, eyes unseeing and blood seeping into the brickwork of a collapsed building.</p><p>But these visions aren’t bloodied and disfigured.</p><p>They’re clean and untouched by the destruction of this world. Dressed in all black, long overcoats like capes in the wind, leather jackets and high boots, all different variations of what Five would guess is some sort of uniform.</p><p>Five’s eyes catch on Ben for a moment, scanning him with a sort of morbid fascination.</p><p>Five never found Vanya or Ben’s bodies, though he searched and searched for days, until his hands were raw and his nails were bleeding. Until, finally, Five had to give up, had to put grave-markers over two empty spots in the ground.</p><p>It wasn’t until he found Vanya’s book that he discovered what his sister looked like in adulthood. It wasn’t until he read it, that Five learned that the reason he couldn’t find Ben’s body was because he had died long before the Apocalypse. </p><p>Five has never seen what Ben would look like as a grown man.</p><p>He wonders how accurate his vision of Ben is, if he grew to be this tall or if his face stayed rounded, if he would have stayed this slender or if he would have filled out.</p><p>Five hates it, that his mind would even try to conjure up a version of Ben as anything other than the Ben he remembers.</p><p>“Five?” Allison asks, her voice soft and hushed.</p><p>Five catches her eye before he forces his own down and away. This isn’t real, he needs to remember that. He buried them, they aren’t here, <em>they aren’t here.</em></p><p>Five takes a deep breath and pulls at his hair with both hands, almost stabbing himself in the face with his knife before he drops it.</p><p>“No, <em>nope,”</em> he mumbles to himself, desperate and verging on frantic. “You aren’t real. You are not real,” he says. Maybe if he says it out loud they will go away, maybe if he keeps repeating it Five’s subconscious will register it as fact and stop torturing him like this.</p><p>“Awe,” Klaus says from his place next to Vanya. “That’s kinda mean. I feel de-validated as a human-being.”</p><p>Vanya smacks at Klaus’ shoulder. <em>“Klaus,”</em> she hisses in reprimand.</p><p>It looks so real, <em>they</em> look so real.</p><p>Five forces himself to glance away from them, because if he doesn’t get a grip on himself <em>right now,</em> then he isn’t sure how he’ll put himself back together tomorrow.</p><p>“Uh, Five?” Luther mumbles, sounding unsure and stiff. “We’re, um, we <em>are</em> real.”</p><p>Five shakes his head, his breathing is too quick and shallow, he better get that under control before he starts hyperventilating.</p><p><em>‘You need to take deep breaths, Five,’</em> Dolores tells him from her place in the wagon.</p><p>Five crouches down, pressing his knees into his chest and gritting his teeth. “I <em>know,”</em> he snaps at her, already knowing he’ll have to apologize for it later.</p><p>“You…you know we’re real?” someone else asks, Five thinks it might’ve been Ben.</p><p>Five shakes his head violently, slapping his hands against his ears so he won’t have to hear them. <em>“No,”</em> he grits out, “you are <em>not.</em> You are not real. You’re dead.”</p><p>His chest hurts, his head is spinning.</p><p>Five thinks he might be panicking, which is ridiculous, he shouldn’t be freaking out just because he’s hallucinating his brothers and sisters. He shouldn’t be shaking apart just because he knows that in a few moments he will blink, and they will no longer be standing there.</p><p>He shouldn’t feel so incredibly hopeless just at the thought of opening his eyes only to find himself alone again.</p><p>Someone is crouching down next to Five, dirt crunching under the soles of their shoes. “You need to breathe, Five,” Allision says, voice soft and sad.</p><p>Five shakes his head, shoving his face into his knees and pressing his hands against his ears hard enough to hurt.</p><p><em>“Stopstopstop,”</em> he mutters, feeling tears building up behind his closed eyelids. “You aren’t here, <em>you aren’t here.”</em></p><p>“Hate to break it to you, dude,” Diego says from far too close, right in front of Five. “But we’re as real as they get.”</p><p>And then Five is being pulled forward by two big hands, falling into the warmth of another person’s chest before arms wrap themselves around him.</p><p>Five’s brain sort of short-circuits, his breath catching and his fingers scrambling over fabric for a moment. It feels so real, the arms pressing against his back, the puff of an exhale ruffling his hair, the scent of leather and shampoo filling his nose.</p><p>Could Five’s mind conjure all this up, every single little detail, every tiny sensation?</p><p>Everything in Five wants to believe that this is real, that he is actually hugging his brother, that they’ve come for him, that they are here to save him.</p><p>But what if he gives in to this and it turns out not to be true?</p><p>What if Five gives into the feeling of hope only for it to be snatched away come morning?</p><p>Five doesn’t know what to do.</p><p>So he just cries instead.</p><p>Five presses himself further into Diego’s chest and clutches the leather of his jacket between trembling fingers, before he lets out something far too close to a wail.</p><p>Diego squeezes Five tighter in response, one of his hands coming up to cup the back of Five’s head, fingers tangling in Five’s hair, which just makes Five cry even harder.</p><p>It would be mortifying if this were real, or if Five had any semblance of control over himself in this moment, but he doesn’t, and he is still 48% sure that this is a starvation-induced hallucination.</p><p>There is the sound of movement around Five, of shuffling feet and murmuring voices, and then there are more hands on him. Squeezing his elbows and resting on his shoulders, patting his head and sprawled over his ribcage.</p><p>Five is surrounded by them, in the center of a makeshift circle, with all of his siblings crowded around him and holding onto Five.</p><p>“If you assholes turn out not to be real, I’m going to kill you,” Five says wetly, face still pressed into Diego’s shirt.</p><p>“That’s fair,” Klaus says, voice coming out just as watery.</p><p>Allison gives a laugh that sounds halfway to being a sob, someone else sniffles to Five’s left, Vanya squeezes his wrist in response. Everyone is still couched around him, everyone hands are still holding onto him.</p><p>Five doesn’t think he could make this up, he doesn’t think his mind could begin to fabricate the feeling of nine different hands pressed up against him in soft touches that do absolutely nothing to hurt and everything to comfort. </p><p>Five pulls away from Diego’s embrace just enough to slip off his goggles. They’re foggy and filled with tears, so Five shoves them off his head and lets them fall to the dirt.</p><p>The air stings his eyes and particles of ash get caught in Five’s wet lashes, but for once he doesn’t care.</p><p>“Not that this isn’t riveting and all,” he begins, voice rough and scratching, but more hopeful than it’s been in years. “But if you don’t mind, I’d very much like to get the hell out of here.”  </p><p>Someone ruffles his hair, Ben snorts, and Klaus says, “way ahead of you,” and then he’s jogging away from the group only to come back with a bulky briefcase clutched to his chest.</p><p>“Alright kids,” Klaus says crouching back down between Allison and Ben. “Everyone hold onto someone else, we’re blowing this popsicle-stand.”</p><p>He begins to open the suitcase and Five has a sudden jolt of sharp panic. <em>“Wait!”</em> he yelps, pulling away from the hands on him with a dawning realization.</p><p>“Wait, just…Just one second,” Five says, pushing himself off of his knees and scrambling away from the arms circling around him.</p><p>He jogs over to his wagon and scoops Dolores up into his arms, hugging her tightly to his chest as he murmurs, “I’m sorry, <em>I’m so sorry,”</em> quietly enough that only she will hear his breathless apologies.</p><p>He can’t believe he forgot about Dolores for even a moment, that he almost <em>left her behind</em>.</p><p>Five rushes back to his gathered siblings, ducking under their arms and situating himself and Dolores between Vanya, Diego, and Luther.</p><p>“Alight,” he says, letting out a deep shuddering breath and trying not to catch any of their concerned gazes. “I’m ready,” he says, looking up at Klaus and nodding toward the briefcase.</p><p>“Alright ladies and gentlemen,” Klaus announces, “let’s get the hell out of this shithole.”</p><p>And then he’s popping open the suitcase, and with the sound of a machine whirring to life and a light bright enough to make Five’s ears ring- Five has the all too familiar feeling of falling through space and time itself.</p><p>It’s like an all-over body tingle. A cold shock to the system that lights up the neurons in Five’s brain like nothing else ever could. A tickle that runs over Five’s nerve-endings before it dissipates out his fingertips and toes.</p><p>But just as abruptly has the sensation overtakes Five, it’s gone.</p><p>He’s still crouched on the ground, his siblings’ hands pressed into his shoulder-blades and holding him by the elbows. His arms protectively clutching Dolores to his chest.</p><p>The first thing that Five registers is the smell.</p><p>Or well, maybe the lack of it.</p><p>The air in the Apocalypse is always chocked full of ash and smoke, the scent of sulfur and decomposing bodies.</p><p>Five had figured that he would grow immune to the stench of it, that the way the air burned in his lungs and stung at his eyes would stop registering at some point.</p><p>But he supposes that no one can grow accustomed to hell.</p><p>That’s what makes it hell after all.</p><p>But the sudden absence of it, to breathe in and not choke on the acid in the air, to suck in a breath and not want to gag against the smell of the dead around him.</p><p>It’s such a phenomenal <em>(astounding, reverent, shocking) </em>feeling that Five just sits and breathes it in for a long moment.    </p><p>Five blinks away the dizziness that had enveloped him when they jumped and dazedly opens his eyes to a sight he hasn’t seen in years.</p><p>There is thick green grass pressed against his knees and a bright blue sky above his head.</p><p>And suddenly, Five can no longer breathe.</p><p>He reaches down with his left hand, running his fingers through the strands of dew-damp grass, with something brittle and fragile pushing up against his sternum.</p><p>“Five?” someone says from behind him.</p><p>But Five hardly registers it, because there are rustling trees in front of him and white clouds in the sky, and there are the sounds of birds chirping as they fly through the air and the sun is shining brightly down on Five’s face.</p><p>And there is not one speck of ash.</p><p>Not one speck.</p><p>Five hunches over Dolores, pressing his forehead into the <em>(green, alive, wonderful)</em> grass as the first relieved sob bursts from his chest.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>;)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Two things; </p><p>One; I will be ignoring the whole Luther/Allison romance, they're just best friends in this AU...because I'm the oldest of five siblings and that's <em> yucky. </em></p><p>Two; the chapter count is tentative, this could end up being longer, I'm just not certain at the moment. But I'm sure you don't mind. ;) </p><p><strong> Trigger Warning for- </strong> Five's emotional and mental state. :D</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Until this very moment, Five hadn’t known that it was possible to feel relief so profoundly that you end up choking on it.</p><p>But, well, you learn something new every day.</p><p>It’s not an unpleasant feeling exactly, but it’s not something that Five has any control over, and the lack of control in of itself is unsettling.</p><p>It’s like his chest has been cleaved open, and suddenly, all of Five’s emotions, and despair, and <em>pain,</em> is pouring out of him and seeping through his fingers as he tries to shove it back into his chest-cavity where it belongs.  </p><p>He’s making noises he wasn’t even aware he <em>could</em> make. It’s horrifying and embarrassing and humiliating to the extreme. Five cannot believe that after over two years of isolation he somehow ends up having this—this <em>mental-break</em> in front of people.</p><p>Five knows better than this, was taught to <em>be</em> better than this. He learned long ago that tears were for children, and he was not, nor had he ever been, a child.</p><p>If Reginald were here, he’d have a coronary.</p><p>Five must-have let go of Dolores at some point, because he has one hand pressed over his stuttering chest, and the other shoved over his mouth to stifle the pathetic noises he can’t seem to stop making.</p><p>He needs to get himself under control, but it’s proving to be extremely difficult when Five’s body refuses to listen to him.</p><p>He feels like he’s shaking apart, trembling hard enough to make his teeth chatter. His ears have gone numb, distorting the sounds around him, like Five’s head has been dunked underwater. His eyes are burning with unshed tears, because even if Five’s body wants to cry, a day and a half without water still means that Five has very little reserves to spare.</p><p>There’s movement around him again, people shifting and saying words that Five can’t make out through the whooshing in his ears. Someone takes a weight off of Five’s feet that he hadn’t even been aware was there until it was gone- and then Five abruptly realizes that weight must have been <em>Dolores.</em>  </p><p>Five jerks into an upright position in his panic, overbalancing and falling to his butt with a thud. A desperate noise rattles from his lungs as he blinks open his eyes, frantically looking for Dolores.</p><p>Five flinches, a whole-body jolt, when a hand unexpectedly lands on his shoulder. But it’s only Diego, crouched back down in front of Five and looking at him with concern.</p><p>Diego is saying something to him, but Five only catches snippets and syllables, his heart galloping in his chest and drowning out all other noise.</p><p>“I—I,” Five starts, but he can’t seem to form complete sentences at the moment. So he settles for breathlessly blurting out, <em>“Dolores?”</em> Because he can’t find her, he can’t see her, <em>where is she, where is she?</em></p><p>There are boots and knees in Five’s peripheral, and then Luther is kneeling down, Dolores held against his broad chest. He smiles tentatively at Five and gently helps Dolores to wave her single arm at Five.</p><p><em>‘I’m fine,’</em> Dolores tuts at Five, <em>‘worry about yourself right now.’</em></p><p>At the sight of her, the anxiety that had sprung up in Five’s chest ebbs slightly, but breathing is still hard, and his head is fuzzy and spinning.</p><p>“Okay,” Diego says, loud enough to catch Five’s attention. Diego plops himself down on the grass with a grunt, hooking his ankles together as he sits in front of Five.</p><p>“You with me?” he asks. His dark eyes are scanning Five patiently, and those are familiar, those are the same, even if the rest of him isn’t.</p><p>Five focuses on Diego’s eyes, and nods.  </p><p>“We’re gonna slow it down, alright?” Diego tells him, words over-pronounced and enunciated for Five’s benefit. “In through the nose,” he instructs, and Five pulls in a wobbly breath. “Good. Now hold it for four seconds, I’ll count it out. Ready?”</p><p>Diego sits with Five for a long few minutes, slowly and calmly helping Five get his disobedient lungs back under his own control.</p><p>When the panic has fully settled and Five can pull in a breath without it rattling in his chest, he feels drained and distant from himself, emptier, in a way.</p><p>Unfortunately for Five, as the anxiety subsides, it leaves behind plenty of room for pure and utter mortification.</p><p>Five looks up and takes in his cluttered siblings. Diego is the only one close to him, the others apparently deciding to give him room to breathe.</p><p>Klaus, Vanya, and Ben are a few feet away to his left. Ben’s arm slung over Vanya’s shoulders as she leans into him. Klaus’ arms crossed over his chest, his bottom lip caught between his teeth.</p><p>Luther, Allison, and Dolores are stood on his right side. Dolores still held in Luther’s arms, unharmed and protected and <em>safe</em>. Allison looks near tears again, her face pinched and a little red.</p><p><em>‘Say something,’</em> Dolores whispers to him, <em>‘they’re worried about you…So am I.’</em></p><p>Five pulls in a deep breath and decides that the best course of action is to move on and act as if nothing noteworthy just happened.</p><p>“Where are we?” he asks, proud when he finds his voice no longer shaking. Five gestures to his left, indicating the small farmhouse sat across from them.  </p><p>Five had expected to appear at the Academy. Every time he had imagined leaving the Apocalypse, that horrible godforsaken place, he had pictured himself walking back into his childhood home.</p><p>But he now realizes that that notion was probably childish.</p><p>Not that Five particularity <em>wanted</em> to return to the Academy either, but anything was better than the Apocalypse, and that house held his siblings, which was all that mattered.</p><p>But well, his siblings are grown now.</p><p>Why would they still live at the Academy?</p><p>“The Farm,” Vanya answers him, her tone soft and cautious.</p><p>“Wait,” Klaus pipes up, “are we just going to pretend th—” Ben interrupts him by stomping on Klaus’ foot, making Klaus yelp. <em>“Alright, </em>yes,<em> moving on,”</em> he splutters, bouncing away from Ben.</p><p>“The Farm?” Five asks, completely ignoring Klaus and looking over to Vanya.</p><p>“Yeah,” she says, giving a half-smile. “It’s our, uh…” When she trails off multiple people jump in with their own responses.</p><p>“Base of operations.”</p><p>
  <em>“Frat house.”</em>
</p><p>“New Academy, of sorts.” </p><p>“It’s our <em>home.”</em></p><p>Five glances back at the house with a new perspective, squinting up at it and assessing the dinky little thing with fresh eyes.</p><p>It’s a two-story, with a small porch and a rocking chair at the front. Painted a light blue with white trim and shutters around the windows. It’s very domestic looking, insignificant and underwhelming in every sense.</p><p>Five doesn’t understand.</p><p>“Bit…<em>compact,</em> to be a ‘base of operations’. Or a home for six people, for that matter,” Five mutters, wrinkling his nose at the sight of it.</p><p>Ben lets out a huff of laughter as Klaus wags his finger at Five. “Au contraire, my dear frère. You just wait ‘til you see inside,” Klaus tells him.</p><p>Five almost makes a crack about how he <em>very much</em> doubts his opinion will change upon entering the tiny farmhouse, but he clamps the comment back behind his teeth and keeps it to himself.</p><p>From the looks his siblings are sending him, he didn’t do a particularly good job of keeping his true feelings off his face.</p><p>He’ll have to work on that. Five is no longer used to schooling his features or keeping his thoughts to himself, not anymore.</p><p>Not since it became just him and Dolores, alone together, the two of them against the world.</p><p>Five pushes himself to his feet and only stumbles slightly. He ignores the wobbling in his legs, and the wavering in his vision, and the protective hand Diego reaches out to him with- and marches toward the house.</p><p>The steps groan under Five’s weight, windchimes sing to his left, there’s a ‘welcome’ mat at his feet- Five takes this all in and can’t help but wonder how the <em>hell</em> his siblings ended up in a place like this.</p><p>Then he pushes open the door, simultaneously finding the answer to that very question even as dozens more pop up in its place.</p><p>The door opens into a large foyer with white marble floors and a high ceiling almost entirely made up of skylights. There is a winding staircase tucked into the corner, and two big archways to Five’s left and right that must lead into the rest of the house.</p><p>There have not been many moments in Five’s life where he has felt completely and utterly baffled, but he can’t seem to wrap his head around this one.</p><p>“…<em>what?”</em> he says from his place frozen in the doorway, hand still poised on the handle.</p><p>“Told you,” Klaus chirps from behind him.</p><p>“Yeah, um,” Luther starts, “our house isn’t exactly…normal.”</p><p>Five turns around slowly and gives Luther one of his best <em>Looks, </em>because if there was ever a comment that deserved a glare, it was that one.</p><p>“I can see that,” Five says, walking into the house and staring up at the thirty-foot ceiling with no-little amount of astonishment. “My question is <em>‘how?’</em>”</p><p>“I’m not really the one that should be describing it, but basically, our house doesn’t obey the laws of physics,” Diego starts. </p><p>Five nods, says, “dimensional transcendentalism,” to show that he’s listening even as he strolls further into the room.</p><p>“Gesundheit,” Klaus exclaims from his place trailing behind Five. Five absently swats at him with his uninjured hand.</p><p>“The outside is an illusion,” Vanya says, “the farmhouse, I mean.”</p><p>“Yes, obviously,” Five says, turning back around to look at his siblings. “But how does it <em>work?”</em></p><p>“Um, well, the house was built between dimensions,” Ben tells him. “It’s like Diego said, the laws of physics are still at play here…they’re just, more flexible.”</p><p>Five’s head is spinning, and it’s not from starvation or dehydration this time. He has so many questions he doesn’t even know where to start.</p><p>Unfortunately for him, the moment Five opens his mouth to ask, there is the sound of clicking heels on marble-flooring coming from behind him, cutting Five off as he looks over his shoulder.</p><p>“Grace?” Five blurts at the sight of their mother, though he really shouldn’t be surprised.</p><p>She approaches him with a kind smile on her face, blue eyes and red lips, smelling of both flowery perfume and something distinctly metallic.</p><p>She blinks down at Five as she leans in and places a gentle hand on his cheek. “Oh, Five dear,” she says, her eyes scanning Five’s face, her fingers soft as they brush Five’s hair away from his forehead. “You’ve gotten yourself into quite some trouble, I can see. Come along, lets get you all sorted.”</p><p>She leans away from Five and takes his hand into her own, pulling him along. Five doesn’t fight it, but he does glance back, finding Dolores still held in Luther’s arms.</p><p><em>‘I’ll be fine,’</em> she calls to him. <em>‘Go. I’ll be here when you’re finished.’</em></p><p>Five nods to her, and then he looks at his gathered siblings and says, “this discussion is<em> not</em> over.” He jabs a threatening finger at all of them right before Grace pulls him down the winding stairs and out of sight.</p><hr/><p>“Shoes, socks, and shirt off, please,” Grace instructs Five as she turns around to gather her supplies.</p><p>Five almost argues that he’s fine, that he only has scarps and bruises, nothing that he hasn’t dealt with before and that he won’t deal with again.</p><p>But that isn’t quite true, is it?</p><p>Because Five’s lungs rattle and burn when he accidentally pulls in too deep a breath. Because his vision is still fuzzy around the edges. Because he keeps being hit with random waves of dizziness. Because his bones are too apparent under his ashy skin.</p><p>Five kicks off his shoes and starts slipping out of his layers without saying a word.</p><p>He sits on the gurney and through Grace’s examination and poking and prodding with only minor protests and minimal complaint.</p><p>Grace takes it all without batting an eyelash, because she raised seven unruly children, and nothing fazes her. Whether that be from years of practice, or her coding, Five doesn’t know.</p><p>“Drink this please,” Grace says, handing Five a bottle of faintly blue liquid.</p><p>He snatches it from her, unscrewing the lid with trembling fingers. God, he’s so thirsty, the sight of something clean to drink, something clear of mud and ash, makes Five’s chest constrict with something painful and desperate.</p><p>But before he can even get the bottle to his lips Grace’s hand stops him. “Little sips at first,” she gently says, “you don’t want to make yourself sick.”</p><p>Five blinks dazedly at her before looking down at the bottle of <em>(fresh, safe, clean)</em> water in his hand.</p><p>The primal part of Five, the part that is starved and lonely and a little feral- wants to guzzle the whole thing down before something happens to it, before it’s lost, or stolen away, or contaminated by the world around them.</p><p>But the other part of Five, the part that has logic and power over the primal part of himself- the part that remembers words like ‘overhydration’ and ‘water intoxication’- the part that remembers the time he went almost three days without water before he found a half-empty bottle of wine and drank it too quickly, leaving him nauseated and dizzy and trying not to throw up for hours- <em>that</em> part of Five wins out in the end.</p><p>Five forces down the pleading urgency that’s pressing against his sternum and takes a careful sip.</p><p>The drink itself is vaguely sweet, with a hint of tang at the end. It’s probably filled to the brim with salts and vitamins and electrolytes, all vital things that Five is severely lacking.</p><p>Five closes his eyes and holds the drink in his mouth for a drawn-out moment, savoring it before he swallows it down. </p><p>Grace continues to move around and examine Five, but now that he's distracted with drinking, he doesn't pay her much mind. Not even when she taps and prods at his bruised ribs or checks the range of motion of his left wrist, making sure it's just a bad sprain and not a hairline fracture. </p><p>The only thing that pulls Five away from his bottle, is when Grace places an ice-cold stethoscope over his heart to listen intently.</p><p>Five mutely stares up at Grace, feeling undressed in more ways than one, now that he has Grace’s whole focus on him. He knows what she's hearing, a struggling heart, one that is too slow from lack of vitamins and nutrition. </p><p>It's the same sound Five would listen to on the worse days, when he would feel too tired and too drained to get up. When he would lay in the dirt and dust and listen to the sluggishness of his heartbeat, and wonder. </p><p>Grace hums but doesn't say anything, which Five finds himself grateful for. She just moves the stethoscope along Five's breastbone before she mummers, "deep breath." </p><p>Five tries, but as he fills up his lungs they constrict and burn, like a muscle tearing or skin ripping. It makes Five's eyes water, and then he's hunching over and coughing roughly into his fist. Holding onto his throbbing ribs as he tries and fails to get the coughing-fit under control. </p><p>Grace gently pulls him out of his curled-up position and hands back the water-bottle that Five lost in the midst of his coughing.</p><p>Five chokes down a mouthful and then holds his breath for a moment. The drink helped, but his lungs are still aching and irritated. </p><p>"That'll be all for now," Grace says, patting Five on the back before moving away to snap off her gloves and put her equipment away. "Why don't you have a warm bath while I go gather you some clean clothing, hm?" </p><p>Five nods, or well, his head sort of flops on his neck in response. Now that the adrenaline and shock have worn off, Five feels tired and drained, left to bear the weight of his own exhaustion again.</p><p>He doesn’t think he should take a bath right now, if he did, there is a very good chance that Five would fall asleep and drown.</p><p>And he’s already embarrassed himself enough for one day.</p><p>Five watches Grace leave the room before he slides off the gurney, wandering over to where he assumes the bathroom is connected to the infirmary. Bare-feet on tiled-floor making little smacking noises as he fumbles around.</p><p>Five flips on the lights and finds himself staring at the bathtub in the corner for a drawn-out second before he pointedly shakes his head to himself. Five turns away from the tub and stumbles into a shower stall instead, shucking off his pants and tripping over the legs, nearly faceplanting in the process.</p><p>Five huffs irritably at himself before he flicks on the tap, and then he just...stares at the water for a second. </p><p>It glitters in the florescent lights, spraying out like a mist before it falls to the ground and swirls away. Five can't help but look at it and think <em>'waste-waste-waste', </em>as so much usable (drinkable) water literally washes down the drain. </p><p>But Five pushes that thought away and walks under the spray. </p><p>It's a tepid, just this side of too cold, but Five doesn't care. He tilts his face up to the water, squeezing his eyes shut as he opens his mouth, letting it fill up before running down his chin.</p><p>The water may be too cool on his skin, but it's too warm in his mouth. It tastes vaguely of chlorine and metal pipes, and it makes Five's eyes and nose burn when it gets in them. </p><p>It's the best feeling in the world. </p><p>A choked laugh unexpectedly bursts from Five’s chest and he sputters and choughs against the water in his mouth for a moment. Blinking back tears and swiping his hair out of his face Five gives another desperate-sounding bark of laughter, feeling lightheaded with elation. </p><p>He can’t believe it, he can hardly wrap his head around it.</p><p>He got away, he isn’t <em>there,</em> isn’t in the Apocalypse.</p><p>He isn’t alone anymore.</p><p>Five laughs again, except maybe it wasn’t a laugh at all, but something sadder and more despondent. Five doesn’t want to acknowledge it though, doesn’t want to think about it, so he reaches for the soap dispenser and takes his first real shower in over two years.</p><p>The smell of eucalyptus is strong in the air as Five lathers the soap into his too-long hair and over his cuts and bruises. He scrubs until his skin is pink and tingling, he scrubs until there is no sign of ash or dust or death on his body, he scrubs until the water has gone from tepid to chilled to freezing.</p><p>And then Five scrubs some more.</p><p>Because he can’t get it all off.</p><p>His skin is clear and clean looking, he no-longer smells of sulfur and smoke, there is no more dirt in his hair or under his nails. But Five can still feel it on him like a second skin. The Apocalypse, it’s clinging to him, like a stench, a scar, a disease that Five <em>can’t get off</em>.</p><p>Because it isn’t just on him, is it?</p><p>It’s inside Five too, infested his body, poisoned his lungs, infected his blood. Five breathed in the Apocalypse for over two years, he lived amongst the ashes and death, he dug his fingers into the ruined earth and let it soak into him.</p><p>Five can't wash it off because it's a part of him now. </p><p>Maybe he'll never be able to get rid of it, that feeling of the whole entire world resting on his shoulders, like a heavy, heavy corpse left for Five to carry all by himself. </p><p><em>“Holy shit,”</em> Five whispers to no one, pressing his forehead to the chilled wall, hands shaking and breath stuttering over an exhale, he squeezes his eyes shut.</p><hr/><p>When Five stumbles out of the bathroom, (feeling shaky and a little disconnected from himself) wrapped up in a robe far too large for his frame- Luther and Allison are waiting for him in the infirmary.</p><p>Five looks at them blankly, staring at them for a moment before Allison steps forward. “Vanya and I found some comfortable clothes for you,” she tells him, handing Five a stack of folded laundry.</p><p>“Mom is finishing up in the kitchen,” Luther says from behind Allison. “She’s warming up some soup.”</p><p>Five nods, mumbles, “thanks,” and then turns back to the bathroom to change.</p><p>It’s starting to get old real fast, having to walk everywhere rather than just jumping from room to room. But Five is too exhausted and starved to safely use his powers right now.</p><p>That was probably the biggest drawback of having to ration his food. It meant that Five could use his ability less and less. His powers take calories and energy, things that Five doesn’t- <em>didn’t</em> have, and so warping too often always ran the risk of draining Five quicker.</p><p>He’s really, <em>really</em> looking forward to being able to jump freely again.</p><p>When Five comes back out, dressed in gray and blue flannel pajama-pants and a green sweatshirt that has fleece lining the inside and hangs over his fingertips- Grace is waiting for him with a soft smile on her face.</p><p>“Hello, sweetheart,” she greets, and Five’s steps falter.</p><p>He blinks at Grace, feeling caught off guard and unsure. He’s fairly certain that Grace has <em>never</em> called him ‘sweetheart’ before, he isn’t sure how he feels about it, or how he <em>should</em> feel about it.</p><p>It’s a term of endearment, something that most normal mothers give to their children. But Grace is not a normal mother, and Five is not a child, and he isn’t, nor will he ever be, sweet or kindhearted.</p><p>But before Five can say anything Grace is moving on. “I would like to wrap that hurt wrist of yours, now that you’re all washed,” she says, and Five nods tiredly, climbing back on the gurney so she can do just that.</p><p>As Grace begins binding Five’s wrist Allison steps up to them, giving Five a tilting smile. She shows him a red inhaler and a little glass bottle held in each of her hands.</p><p>“You’re supposed to take two puffs of this inhaler every morning and night,” she begins, holding it out to Five. “It’ll help to heal your lungs and dispel any pollution you might’ve breathed it.”</p><p>Five glances at the inhaler, taking it from Allison and studying it. It doesn’t look like a normal inhaler, it’s rounder and has some odd serial number on the back— suddenly, Five has a jolting realization.</p><p>“Where are my other clothes?” he blurts, turning to Grace.</p><p>“I haven’t gotten to them quite yet,” she answers, tying off the bandage around his left wrist. “They’re in need of a washing, some seemed to be beyond repair I’m afraid.”</p><p>Five lets out a low growl, his heart racing in his chest. “Yes, but where <em>are </em>they?”  </p><p>Grace blinks at him, says, “I set them aside,” she points to Five’s jacket, shirts, and shoes which are stacked on a counter across the room.</p><p>Five doesn’t think about it when he warps over, he just does, the dizziness and nausea that it causes be damned.   </p><p><em>“Five?”</em> Allison and Luther both call to him, but Five ignores them.</p><p>He snatches his jacket up and digs through its right pocket, breathing out a sigh of relief when his fingers close around the eyeball he has wrapped in torn fabric.</p><p>Five takes in a shuttering breath and then coughs it out roughly, wheezing slightly as he pulls his boots over to himself and digs his knife out of the left one.</p><p>Or well, he should say, <em>Diego’s</em> knife.</p><p>Five didn’t have much in the Apocalypse, but he did have two things he kept on his person at all times. The eyeball that he found clutched in Luther’s stiff cold fingers, and the single knife that had still been strapped to Diego’s body when Five found him.</p><p>Five shoves both items into the front pocket of his hoodie and turns back around to find Luther and Allison watching him with something far too close to pity on their faces.</p><p>“Fi—” Luther starts, but Five doesn’t want to get into this right now, not while his vision is wavering and he’s swaying on his feet and he can hardly think straight.</p><p>“What are the drops for?” Five interrupts, looking at Allison.</p><p>Allison seems caught off guard by the question, she trips over her first few words. “They’re…they’re for your eyes. They’ll help with the same things, the pollution and healing process. One drop in each eye every morning and night.”</p><p>Five swipes the bottle from her, nodding in understanding and stuffing it into his front pocket along with everything else.</p><p>“You said there was soup?” he asks the room at large, and Grace hums, grabbing a thermos off a counter and extending it to Five.</p><p>Five takes it and immediately his heartrate starts to slow down and even out. Because the thermos is <em>warm</em> against his fingers, and though the lid is still on, Five can vaguely smell the soup inside.</p><p>It’s the promise of <em>food.</em>  </p><p>Five’s hands are still shaking when he twists off the cap, and then he’s being hit with the full force of what he can only assume is Grace’s homemade chicken-noodle soup.</p><p>Five’s stomach twists, a ravenous thing begging to be fed, impatiently ripping at Five’s insides. Five doesn’t wait another second, just takes in a mouthful, and immediately feels himself tear up.</p><p>If he was more aware right now, he might be embarrassed by that. But in this moment Five’s entire world is made up of himself and this soup-filled thermos.  </p><p>Five breathes in the smell of chicken and spices and vegetables and feels dizzy with it. It is the richest, the headiest, the absolute <em>best</em> thing Five has tasted in years.</p><p>It’s a little overwhelming actually.</p><p>Five’s stomach both loves and hates it, somehow wanting more even as it seems to rebel against the idea of food. But Five knows how to play this game, he’s well versed in it by now.</p><p>Five takes another sip and just holds it in his mouth for a moment, swaying on his feet and clutching the thermos tightly with trembling fingers.</p><p>“I diced everything up, so it should be easier on your stomach,” Grace says, unwrapping something covered in tinfoil. “Here’s your dinner-roll, dear.”</p><p>She places the roll in Five’s hand and Five just stares down at it for a second, utterly lost for words. It’s soft and warm in his fingers, and Five digs one of his nails into it just to feel how fluffy it is.</p><p>“…oh,” Five murmurs, his chest constricting.  </p><p>Five blinks at his bread and his soup dazedly, squeezing the roll in his hand and clutching the thermos to his chest. He doesn’t know what to do with himself, he feels tired and dizzy and a little bit like he’s floating.</p><p>Sitting down sounds like a good idea.</p><p>So Five does just that, or well, he thinks he might fall more than sit. Because his tailbone throbs at him and his head spins and a tiny bit of the soup splashes out, which is- <em>not good, a waste, irresponsible -</em>Five can’t afford to be careless like that.</p><p>Five pulls his knees to his chest and balances his thermos between his torso and his thighs, carefully ripping the roll apart before he stuffs some in his mouth.</p><p>“Hey, Five?” someone calls, and Five looks up to see Luther kneeled down in front of him. “Would you maybe like to go to the living room with everyone else?” he asks.</p><p>Five blinks up at Luther, feeling a little lost. “I’m tired,” he tells Luther, because it’s true, because Five’s whole entire body hurts, because his eyes are heavy and blurry.</p><p>Because Five has been tired for a very long time.</p><p>“Okay,” Luther says, and he’s speaking slowly and softly, Five wonders why. “Okay, well how ‘bout we head upstairs, and you can drink your soup and then you can sleep. Does that sound alright with you?”</p><p>Five’s eyes must have closed while Luther was speaking, because he has to force them back open when he nods in agreement.  </p><p>“I don-- th--- -- can walk, --ther. ---‘re gonna need t- carry -im,” Allison whispers to Luther, Five squints at her, because he’s pretty sure she’s talking about him.</p><p>“Alright, buddy,” Luther says, snapping Five’s attention back to him. He gently steals Five’s thermos, which is upsetting, but then he says, “I’m gonna pick you up now.”</p><p>And before Five can fully comprehend the implications of what Luther just said, he’s being scooped up off the floor. Luther’s arms slung under his knees and behind his shoulders.</p><p>Five’s head flops back with the unexpectedness of it. But then he feels Allison’s fingers at the base of his skull, gently tilting Five’s head so his cheek is resting on Luther’s shoulder.</p><p>One moment they are in the infirmary, and the next, they are walking into an unfamiliar living room. But it doesn’t matter that Five doesn’t recognize the room, because it’s filled with his brothers and sisters, and that’s all that Five cares about right now.  </p><p>There is sound and movement around Five and then he’s being set down on something soft.</p><p>Five scrambles to sit upright, blinking open his eyes as hands and fingers wrap around his arms and shoulders. Five is now sitting between Ben and Diego, who are both holding onto Five for some reason.</p><p>“Hey kiddo,” Klaus is in front of Five, when did that happen? “Look at me for a second,” he says.</p><p>Five stares at Klaus for a long moment.</p><p>He doesn’t look quite like he had in death. He seems a bit older. His hair is longer, curly and hanging down to his mid-back. His skin is tan instead of ashy, and there is no sign of blood or gore on him.</p><p>When Five looks at his brother’s green eyes they stare back, because Klaus isn’t a dead thing.</p><p>Not anymore.</p><p>Staring at Klaus is making Five’s chest hurt and his eyes burn, so he turns away from his brother. Searching for Dolores instead. Because they’ve been a part for some immeasurable amount of time and Five needs to make sure she’s still alright.</p><p>He finds her after only a second of scanning the room. Dolores has a whole armchair to herself. She looks comfortable and calm, Five is glad for it, is happy to see her safe and sound.</p><p>She doesn’t speak, but Five didn’t expect her too. There isn’t anything to say right now. They’ll talk later, when they’re alone and Five feels more connected to himself.</p><p>Words drift through the air, Five catches snippets of them.</p><p>“— triggered?”</p><p>“— already signs -- PTSD?”</p><p>“— thi-k jus- tired.”</p><p>“— needs food --- sleep.”</p><p>Five looks away from Dolores when Allison edges into his vision “Hey Five,” she says, her smile looks wrong, Five squints at it. “You wanna drink some more soup before you go to sleep?”</p><p>Five does, he numbly takes the thermos from Allison, fumbling with it before he brings it to his lips. Five closes his eyes as he takes a drink, his whole-body filling with warmth.</p><p>Five sags, feeling heavy and very far away.</p><p>“He’s gonna choke,” someone says, voice distant.</p><p>“He needs the calories, but he’s barely conscious,” someone else replies, Five isn’t sure who.</p><p>“Mom said he drank one of those supplemental drinks, right?” someone who sounds like Ben says from Five’s left. “And he’s had a little bit of bread and soup on top of that, he should be fine for one night.”</p><p>“God I…I knew that he was just a kid when he first arrived there,” someone, (Vanya?) sounds like they are crying. “But knowing and <em>seeing</em> are two very different things…I—he’s just so <em>little.”</em></p><p>“Don’t let <em>him</em> hear you say that,” Klaus blurts from somewhere close.</p><p>“I know… It’s weird, seeing him so—so <em>affected</em> by it all. I don’t think I really realized what it was like for him. I guess I never thought about it,” Luther says from somewhere across the room.</p><p>There is a lull in the conversation, which is fine with Five. He wasn’t really registering their words anyway, just sort of soaking in the timbre of all their mixed voices.</p><p>Five thinks about how incredible it feels to listen to other voices other than his own, how unbelievably extraordinary it is to listen to other people talk around him.</p><p>Five’s head abruptly tips forward and he smacks his front tooth against the rim of the thermos, making a disgruntled noise in the back of his throat when it jars his head and makes his mouth throb.</p><p>“Alright,” someone says from Five’s right, and he recognizes the voice as Diego’s. “No more debate, the kid’s pretty much passed out anyway.”</p><p>Five’s thermos is stolen from him again, but he feels a little less predatory about it this time, so he doesn’t protest.</p><p>Hands are tipping Five to the side, dragging him down and letting him rest against something soft and vaguely squishy, and then there is the feel of a warm blanket being draped over him.   </p><p>Five drifts off to the feeling of fingers ghosting through his hair and the sounds of whispered words drifting through the air.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Poor Five has had a very overwhelming day. </p><p> </p><p>Also, I'm sure that this chapter added to the pile of questions instead of answering any of them. Just know that everything will eventually be addressed, just not all at once, or right away. ;)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Sorry for the wait on this one, I re-wrote this chapter like four times before I was happy with it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Something brushes against Five's hair, tickling at his scalp and bumping the shell of his ear.</p><p>Five comes awake in an instant, a noise of alarm getting caught in a harsh cough as Five reaches for the knife tucked into his boot.</p><p>Whatever touched him was too large to be a roach or bug.</p><p>Most likely a rat then.</p><p>Five has taken to sleeping as far up from the ground as he possibly can. He's less likely to be mistaken for a corpse that way. The bugs and rats usually leave him alone when they have to work to get to him.</p><p>But there are still those occasions where one of them will get too curious, or when Five ends up collapsing before he can make it to higher ground.</p><p>Well, if a rat or a roach has been stupid enough to investigate Five while he was sleeping then he's not going to waste the opportunity to catch a free meal.</p><p>But when Five reaches for his knife his fingers scrabble over soft fabric and bare skin.</p><p>"Woah, <em>hey—</em> it's okay. Five, it’s okay," someone says, far too close, and Five flinches away from the sheer shock of it.</p><p>Five jerks into an upright position in his surprise, his vision blurring out of focus, something stinging at the crook of his arm, his heart jackhammering against his chest.</p><p>It takes Five a disorienting few seconds to be able to place himself, but when he does, he feels the tension leave his body like a physical weight.</p><p>"…oh," he breathes, blinking at his surroundings with a vague sense of déjá vu.</p><p>Yellow wallpaper and high ceiling, large windows without a crack in them, the smell of vanilla in the air, the feel of a soft couch under him and a warm blanket over him.</p><p>"Oh…" Five says again, taking it all in, feeling a little breathless as the past day's events come rushing back to him.</p><p>"Five?" someone mummers from his left.</p><p>Five glances away from the patch of sunlight he was studying, only to come face to face with the adult version of Ben.</p><p>If Five felt breathless before, then right now he is truly suffocating. <em>"Ben,"</em> he chokes out, something in his chest constricting.</p><p>Five will never forget the day that he found out about Ben’s death. The memory of it will forever be inscribed into him, seared into Five’s brain.</p><p>That horrible, gut-wrenching moment where Five had sat curled up in his makeshift hammock, swaying in the wind, Vanya’s book in hand, turning from chapter five (his own chapter) to chapter six.</p><p>
  <em>“The Academy was never the same after Five’s disappearance, but things didn’t truly fall apart until Ben died.” </em>
</p><p>Five remembers that moment with all the same clarity that he remembers finding the bodies of his other brothers and sister.</p><p>The way that Vanya had described her perspective of Ben’s death had left far too much up to the imagination. Vanya had not been on the mission where Ben died, and the rest of their siblings had been too grief-stricken and traumatized to answer any of her pleading questions. And their father had, of course, not deemed it necessary for Vanya to know the details that led to Ben’s demise.  </p><p>The vagueness of it had made it all the worse for Five, who had no trouble imagining all the ways that the monsters inside of Ben could have turned against him.</p><p>Five had been inconsolable, almost crazed within his grief.  </p><p>He had felt sick with the need to get home, to get back to them, to get back to <em>Ben.</em> Five had frantically written equations on the walls of the library for days. Going over the numbers again and again, only to come back to the same conclusion he had been getting for the past three and a half months.</p><p>He was stuck.</p><p>There was no magic number, there was no easy fix. Five was stranded, and it was going to take years, maybe <em>decades,</em> for him to figure out a way back to his family.</p><p>When the realization had finally set in, Five had collapsed to his knees, chalk falling from his raw spasming fingers and rolling to the ground. Five had blinked up at the smog covered sky, tears streaming down his face, and then, he did the only thing that felt right in that moment, he screamed.</p><p>He screamed because there was no one left to hear him. He screamed because it was all he could think to do. He screamed for his brothers and sisters. He screamed for himself.</p><p>Five screamed and yelled and raged, because he was sure it was the loudest sound on the planet, and he wanted to be heard. He wanted the whole dead world to hear his sorrow and fury and heartbreak, because Five was the last person on earth, and he deserved to scream.</p><p>So, Five did.</p><p>And when Five had screamed his throat raw, when his head was left pounding and his vision was wavering, when his voice was nothing more than a crackling-wisp of a thing, Dolores spoke into the echoing silence.  </p><p><em>‘Well, Five. You’re the last person in the whole world,’</em> she had said, voice steady and calm. <em>‘What’re you going to do about it?’ </em></p><p>It was the first time Dolores had ever spoken to Five.</p><p>He had looked over at her unfazed and serene face, knowing, deep in his bones, that something must have just broken within him. Five knew that a piece of his sanity must have finally chipped away, to be hearing a voice from someone who did not have one.</p><p>Five had blinked at Dolores, heart-pounding and ears ringing. Five had stared at her for a very long time, and then, he made a choice. “I’m going to fix it,” he answered, a hoarse whisper, the first conversation Five had had in one-hundred and eight days.  </p><p>“You’re…dead,” Five says to Ben, which is not what he intended to say at all. “I— Vanya’s book… She said you died,” Five continues, trying to elaborate even as his mouth fills with the taste of ash and his ears echo with the remembered sound of his own screaming.</p><p>Ben shifts, his lips twisting in something like distaste before he says, “I did.”</p><p>It shouldn’t hurt, because Five already knew. But hearing the words spoken aloud, hearing them from Ben’s own mouth, makes something cold and sharp twist in Five’s gut.</p><p>“We were on a mission,” Ben goes on, voice still soft, like he’s breaking the news to Five, like <em>Five</em> is the one who needs to be held with kiddy gloves while Ben is talking about his own death. “When we were seventeen.”</p><p>“Then <em>how?”</em> Five asks incredulously, gesturing to Ben in all of his undead glory.</p><p>Five suddenly has the inexplicable urge to reach out and touch Ben, to make sure that he is a real tangible being. To press his fingers to Ben’s pulse point just to be sure, to feel for himself that Ben is alive and warm and breathing.</p><p>Five has never been someone who depends on physical touch. He didn’t particularly mind it, as long as it was on his terms. But Five was never one to seek it out for himself.</p><p>There were those occasions, however, where Five would look at Vanya, the way that she would shrink and go distant, hiding behind her bangs as she folded in on herself, and Five would reach out and intertwine their fingers together.</p><p>There were those times, when Klaus would come back from personal training, jumpy and glassy-eyed and flinching at shadows, and Five would stand close enough to brush their shoulders, would sit close enough to bump knees and ankles.</p><p>There were those moments, where their father’s angry voice would ring out across the house, and Diego’s words would be more stilted and stuttered and afraid, and Five would sit with Diego as they traced words onto each other’s palms.  </p><p>There were those days, when Ben would return from a mission covered in blood and gore, silent and far away, trembling and fighting against the monsters trying to tear their way out of him. And Five would sneak into Ben’s room after lights-out and crawl under the covers with him.</p><p>The two of them practically on top of each other as they lay there, Five whispering nonsensical things until Ben’s shaking stopped and his breathing evened out, and then Five would sneak away the same way he had come in the first place.</p><p>Five has never viewed himself as a physical person. But sitting here, across from his brother who he wasn’t sure he’d ever see again, who he mourned for, who he has missed with every fiber of his being.</p><p>It’s hard not to reach out, to grab ahold of Ben and refuse to let go.   </p><p>But they are no longer children, and Ben is not covered in blood or gore, so there is no reason for Five to initiate physical contact.</p><p>Even with that thought, Five’s fingers still twitch in an aborted movement, a little jerk that he can’t seem to taper down. So Five squeezes his hands into fists to quell the urge, keeping them resolutely in his lap.</p><p>“It’s a long and complicated story,” Ben says, giving a smile that is anything but happy. “Maybe not the best topic to talk about first thing in the morning.”</p><p>Five wants to argue, because he has a right to know how Ben has somehow miraculously died and come back to life. But he doesn’t want to fight with Ben, not when it’s about this subject in particular.</p><p>“Fine,” Five concedes, digging his fingernails into his palms. <em>“Later,”</em> he clarifies, because while Five is willing to drop the subject for the moment, there is no way in hell that Five isn’t ultimately getting the answers to his many questions.</p><p>Ben gives him a look that says he expected that response, but he moves on without comment. “I was supposed to wake you for breakfast,” he says, twisting around to grab something off the coffee table. “Mom’s cooking, so she asked me to take out your IV, but I guess you sort of did that for me.”</p><p>Five raises an eyebrow at that, glancing down and rolling up his hoodie sleeves to inspect his arms. “I had an IV?” he asks, a bit bewildered. He doesn’t remember getting an IV, but to be fair, Five’s memory does go a bit hazy after his shower yesterday.</p><p>“Oh,” Ben hums, turning back around and balancing a first aid kit on his knees. “I guess you wouldn’t remember. She put it in after you fell asleep. You woke up for it, but you were pretty out of it.”  </p><p>The thought of being so disoriented in front of everyone sets Five’s teeth on edge, makes hot embarrassment tingle under his skin. But he thinks he’ll have to excuse the majority of his behavior from yesterday, there were extenuating circumstances, and Five doesn’t anticipate anything like that happening again.</p><p>Hopefully, his siblings move on from it.</p><p>“Ouch,” Ben hisses, and Five follows his gaze down to his own arm. There is a small trail of blood coming from the crease of Five’s right elbow, where he, apparently, ripped out his IV when he’d been grabbing for his knife.</p><p>“Sorry about that,” Ben says, reaching out and taking Five’s arm into his hand, fingers wrapped around Five’s wrist and steadying his arm as Ben swipes the blood away.</p><p>Five is hyperaware of it, warm skin against his own, the presence of another human, another person, of his <em>brother-</em> touching him and interacting with him.</p><p>It’s hard not to feel choked by it.</p><p>“It’s fine,” Five says, words croaked.</p><p>Five can feel Ben looking at him, the weight of his gaze hot on Five’s face. But Five stubbornly keeps his head ducked down, staring at the blood beading in the crook of his arm like it’s the most interesting thing in the room.</p><p>Ben is silent as he patches Five up the rest of the way, the only sounds being when he digs through the first aid kit and rips open supplies. Ben gently presses a cotton-ball to Five’s arm to stem the bleeding and then he tapes it down.</p><p>Seemingly done, Five moves to pull away, but Ben stops him with a squeeze of his fingers.</p><p>Five glances up at Ben, confused, but Ben isn’t looking at him. He’s sorting through what Five guesses are band-aids, lifting them up to the light to see what they are before he seems to find what he’s looking for.</p><p>“Here,” Ben says, ripping one open before he smooths it over the tape on Five’s arm like a sticker.</p><p>Once Ben is finished Five twists his arm around to be able to see what it is. The band-aid is bright blue with bold black letters that say <strong>‘SHARK BITE’</strong> in all caps.</p><p>Five scoffs, but leaves it be, rolling his sleeve back down over it.</p><p>“Okay,” Ben says, packing up the kit and snapping it shut before he looks back at Five. “Breakfast is probably done, but first, bathroom.”</p><p>Five raises an eyebrow, but Ben just grabs him by the shoulder and leads Five around the couch to a hallway that Five hadn’t even realized was there.</p><p>There’s a door to his right and straight ahead, and there’s a turn to his left. But Five can’t see around the corner, even when he tries to peer around it.</p><p>Ben chuckles quietly from behind Five. “House tour later,” he says, “brushing teeth now.” And with that, he opens the door on the right and shoves Five inside. “Toothbrush and toothpaste are on the counter, washcloth under the sink,” he calls through the door, shutting it behind Five before walking away.</p><p>Five glares indignantly at the closed door for a moment before he shakes his head to himself and sets about his morning routine, or, what <em>used</em> to be his morning routine.</p><p>Five still isn’t over the novelty that is running water.</p><p>When Five reemerges from the bathroom a few minutes later he is immediately accosted. Three long gangly limbs unexpectedly wrap around Five in a tight hug that ends just as abruptly as it had occurred, not giving Five a chance to react to it.</p><p>“Five!” Klaus exclaims, loud and animated in a way only Klaus could ever be. “There’s the young lad,” he says, slinging an arm over Five’s shoulders and pulling him along. “I was wondering where you’d gotten off to.”</p><p>“We weren’t gone that long,” Ben calls from his place leaned up against the couch.</p><p>“Oh, Benny boy, it’s been <em>ages,”</em> Klaus bemoans, tugging Five out of the living room with Ben trailing behind them.</p><p>Klaus continues rambling, something about Allison and motherly instincts and the promise of omelets, but Five is only giving the conversation half of his attention.</p><p>They’re back in the large foyer, footsteps echoing and floating up to get caught in the sunlight pouring in from the skylights. Five stares up at them, at the blue sky, with a sense of astonishment filling up his chest.</p><p>He still can’t wrap his mind around the sheer size of the inside of this house, and Five has hardly even seen any of it. Those stairs go both up and down, meaning that this place is at least three stories, if not more. And Five is willing to bet his right-arm that there are plenty of hidden rooms and compartments to be found as well.</p><p>Five would kill to get his hands on the math involved in constructing an anomaly like this.</p><p>A hand abruptly waves in front of Five’s face, startling him out of his musing, ‘Hello’ it reads. “Knock-knock,” Klaus leans into Five’s face, cocking his head to the side. “Anyone home?”  </p><p>Five pulls away from Klaus, letting his brother’s arm flop off his shoulders. “How big is this place?” Five asks, ignoring Klaus’ question in favor of his own.</p><p>Klaus scrunches his nose at Five, straightening up and placing his hands on his hips. “Well, kiddo, it’s kinda hard to measure the square footage of a magic house.”</p><p>Five glares at Klaus, giving his best look of Not-Taking-Your-Bullshit. <em>“Try,”</em> Five says, offering his most condescending smile.</p><p>Klaus gives an over dramatic shiver, says, <em>“ugh,</em> that look never changes.”</p><p>“The house is four stories,” Ben pipes up, stealing Five’s attention away from Klaus. “There’s the basement level, which holds the infirmary, the armory, the shooting range, the gym, and a few other rooms. Then the first story, where we are right now, which has all your normal living spaces; living room, sunroom, dining room, kitchen, entryway, the porch.</p><p>“Then there’s the second and third story, which has the bedrooms, the library, Vanya’s music room, the game room slash family room, the loft, a study or two, the bowling alley, Grace’s sewing room, the laundry room—”</p><p>“Wait, <em>wait, wait,”</em> Five interrupts, waving his hand through the air. “Did you just imply, with all sincerity, that you have a <em>‘</em>bowling alle—” Five cuts off as they come into the kitchen, because suddenly, there is a dog pouncing on him.</p><p>It’s instinctual to warp away, even though it makes Five dizzy and vaguely nauseated. Five’s hip knocks against the edge of the counter when he rematerializes, jarring him and making Five stumble slightly before he catches himself.</p><p>The dog doesn’t seem fazed by Five’s reappearance on the other side of the room. Just barks once before it runs back over to Five, tail wagging as it bounds up and down in excitement, nails clicking against the tiled floor.</p><p>A second later Luther is there, scooping the dog up into his arms. “Sorry,” he says, craning his neck up when the dog tries to lick his face. “I didn’t think about how excited he’d be to see you.”</p><p>Five blinks at the wiggling happy dog. “It’s fine,” he mumbles, reaching out to run his fingers through the dog’s fur, clean and soft and long against his hand.</p><p>The last time Five had seen a living animal was almost a year ago.  </p><p>Five had been digging through the ruins of a half-collapsed pharmacy, crawling under shelves and fallen debris, when he’d gotten the intense feeling of being <em>watched.</em></p><p>Five had looked up to find a raccoon staring at him from across the street, poised proudly on the husk of an overturned car as it looked at Five.</p><p>Five had gawked, utterly shocked, frozen in place.</p><p>Because that raccoon was the only living thing that Five had seen other than rats and bugs in a year and a half, and Five could hardly believe it, could hardly believe that something else had survived the destruction of the world.</p><p>Five knew what he should do in that moment.</p><p>He should have warped over to the raccoon and killed it before it knew what was happening. He should have killed it, and eaten it, and been done with it. Because it was the survival of the fittest, a world where only the ruthless and savage lived to see the next day, and Five was desperate.</p><p>But as Five stared the raccoon down, it stared <em>back.</em></p><p>It was dirty and skinny, and its fur was matted down with soot and blood, but when Five looked at the raccoon, all he saw was another survivor, all he saw was himself.</p><p>He couldn’t kill it, not when it had fought this long, not when it had somehow, against all odds, lived through the end of the world.</p><p><em>‘Are you going to keep it, Five?’</em> Dolores had asked from her place in the wagon.</p><p>The raccoon had inched forward, sunken eyes and protruding ribs, its gaze never straying from Five. It had seemed just as surprised to see him, another living creature, as Five was to see it.</p><p>A childish instinct had reared its head at that moment, the desire to take the raccoon, to place it in the wagon next to Dolores, and add the little animal to their makeshift family.</p><p>But Five was starving himself, he went days between meals in order to ration, he couldn’t afford to feed something else.</p><p>Even if that something else had black pleading eyes and fluffy fur around its ears, even if that something else looked as alone and hopeless as Five felt.</p><p>“No,” Five had whispered back, voice cracking. “I can’t.”</p><p><em>‘But you want to,’</em> Dolores had said.</p><p>“I can’t,” Five had repeated, feeling sick with it.</p><p>Five had forced himself to turn away from the raccoon, to ignore the creature and the feeling of eyes on him. Five continued his search for clean bandages and disinfectant, because he had cut his stomach on some rusty metal, and Dolores was worried.</p><p>When Five had reemerged from the pharmacy a half-hour later, the raccoon was gone. Five had stared at the car where it had been for a very long time; until the shaking in his hands finally subsided, and the sound of his heartbeat was no longer roaring in his ears.</p><p>It would die out there, alone and hungry, it would die.</p><p>If Five wasn’t careful, he would die in that very same way.</p><p>That night, once Five was back in his bunker, fresh bandages adorning his stomach, a few scarce bites of food in his system, Five had sat down and cried for the raccoon.</p><p>Later, Five wondered if the raccoon was even real to begin with.</p><p>Maybe Five imagined the whole thing, it would make sense. It was more logical to assume Five’s subconscious conjured the animal up than to believe that it somehow survived all that time.</p><p>Dolores always insisted that it was real.</p><p>But there’s no way that Five will ever truly know.</p><p>Five still isn’t sure what line of thinking is more comforting; believing that there was another living thing out there, just like him, or knowing that there <em>wasn’t.</em> </p><p>Something warm and wet laps at Five’s fingers, shocking him out of the memory and back to the present. Five blinks at the dog still held in Luther’s arms, his thoughts feeling disjointed.</p><p>“What’s its name?” he asks, voice sounding hoarse even to his own ears.</p><p>“Uh, Mr. Pennycrumb,” Luther says, gently setting the dog back down on the floor.</p><p>Five sinks down to let the dog sniff at his fingers and rub against him in excitement. “Mr. Pennycrumb?” Five repeats, testing the name out.</p><p>Five scans the dog; black and white fur, a Border Collie, on the smaller side for his breed, with perky ears, and a red bandana tied around his neck.</p><p>Five nods at the dog, “a suitable name,” he says, reaching out and smirking when the dog complies, shaking Five’s hand.</p><p>Five rises from his crouch, finding Ben, Klaus, Allison, and Luther all staring at him. Five levels the four of them with a glare and they jump out of whatever trance they were just in, all going about their business.</p><p>“Good morning, Five,” Grace greets, setting down two plates before she saunters over to Five, cupping his cheek against her palm. “Your vitals are better this morning, I’m glad to see an improvement.”</p><p>She pulls away, smiling as she gestures to the large kitchen island where Luther is already sitting. “I’ve made you some scrambled eggs and there’s another one of those special drink for you.”</p><p>When Five glances over, he definitely isn’t expecting to see Dolores sat at the counter three seats down from Luther.</p><p>Five blinks over to her without thinking.</p><p><em>‘Took you long enough,’ </em>Dolores says, laughter in her voice. <em>‘Am I not as intriguing as a dog?’ </em></p><p>Five gives her an exasperated tilt of his head. She most definitely already knows the answer to that.  </p><p><em>‘Don’t give me that look,’</em> Dolores chastises lightly. <em>‘You didn’t even notice I was in the room.’</em></p><p>Five huffs, crossing his arms over his chest. “I did…eventually,” Five argues, but there’s a growing sense of guilt settling in his stomach.</p><p>Five hadn’t just not noticed Dolores in the kitchen, he hadn’t even <em>looked</em> for her after he woke up.</p><p>He knows that part of that is the distraction of suddenly being around other people, around his brothers and sisters, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that he’s inadvertently neglected Dolores. </p><p><em>‘I didn’t say it was a </em>bad thing<em>, Five,’ </em>Dolores says, because she is always patient and understanding of Five, even when he doesn’t deserve it.</p><p>As something of an apology, Five reaches over and slides Dolores’ coat off of her. She’s probably overheated in the thick thing, he should have helped her out of it yesterday.</p><p>Five slings the coat over the back of Dolores’ stool and pauses when something falls out of the pocket and smacks to the floor.</p><p>Vanya’s young face (the face that Five remembers) stares back up at him.</p><p>“Oh,” Five mumbles, stooping down to pick up the book. He forgot that he had given it to Dolores to hold for him. Five stuffs ‘Extra Ordinary’ into his own front pocket, freezing when he realizes it’s the only item in there.</p><p>“Where are my other things?” Five asks, turning and finding, once again, everyone already looking at him.</p><p>That’s gonna get old real fast.</p><p>“They’re on the coffee table,” Ben says from his place between Allison and Klaus. “I can go get them for you.”  </p><p>Five almost blinks back into the living room to retrieve them himself, but he refrains. Nodding at Ben instead and trying not to fidget as he watches his brother slip back into the hall.</p><p>With the reminder of the eye, comes the reminder of the Apocalypse, and suddenly, Five’s brain is racing with thoughts and theories and too many numbers to account for. </p><p>“There are things we need to discuss,” Five says, turning to face Allison, Luther, and Klaus.</p><p>“Sure,” Klaus agrees from his seat at the table. “But can’t it wait until after breakfast?”</p><p>As if they choreographed it, Luther slides a plate of bright yellow eggs over to Five at that very same moment.</p><p>Which is blatant manipulation.</p><p>But Five has gone much longer without food, and his resolve is not dependent on his stomach.</p><p>Five doesn’t let himself glance at the plate of eggs however, because he can’t afford to get side-tracked, and he doesn’t exactly trust himself to be utterly objective when it comes to…certain things.</p><p>Five had always anticipated that he would have to convince his brothers and sisters (and presumably their father) of the impending Apocalypse, before they figured out a way to stop it.  </p><p>But clearly, that isn’t going to be an issue.</p><p>His siblings saw it for themselves, they stood among the wreckage and destruction, breathed in ashes and smoke, there is no convincing to be done here.</p><p>The question, then, is how were his brothers and sisters able to travel to the Apocalypse? And how did they know Five was there in the first place?</p><p>Five doesn’t know when exactly he started pacing the length of the kitchen, but he has to turn back around in order to face his siblings, squinting at the three of them as something in Five’s mind clicks into place.</p><p>Now that the shock and elation of being rescued has more or less worn off, there is a blatant fact staring Five in the face.</p><p>“You’re older,” Five realizes aloud.</p><p>Allison is the first to speak up, hesitantly asking, “from when we were thirteen?”</p><p>“Whatever in the world gave you that impression?” Klaus mocks at the same time, giving Five a funny look.</p><p>“Um, yeah?” Luther answers uncertainty.</p><p>Five’s already exasperatedly shaking his head at them. He’s forgotten what it was like to converse with other people. Five has grown used to Dolores, who is always on the same wavelength as him, who always seems to know what Five is thinking.</p><p>Five hasn’t had to explain his thought-process in years, it’s beyond frustrating.</p><p>“No, not <em>then,” </em>Five says, slicing an arm through the air. “You look different, older than when I found you.”</p><p>Now that Five isn’t as distracted, it’s blatantly obvious.</p><p>Allison’s hair is shorter and not the blond that Five remembers, and there’s an unfamiliar scar on her neck that has long since healed.</p><p>Klaus’ hair reaches his mid-back, and there are new tattoos on his skin, and all the fresh track-marks Five remembers are nothing more than scars now.</p><p>Five had been pretty out of it yesterday, but he was aware enough to know that Diego’s has changed as well.</p><p>Out of the four siblings that Five found dead in the Apocalypse though, the only one who seems to be relatively the same age, is Luther.</p><p>But Luther has changed in another way.</p><p>Unlike Klaus, Allison, and Diego’s bodies, Luther had not just been buried in rubble. There had been part of a car on top of him, pinning him to the ground.</p><p>There was no way that Five was going to be able to dig him out like he did with the other bodies. So Five had grabbed onto Luther’s cold stiff hand and warped him out from under the wreckage.</p><p>Five expected the viscera and blood, he prepared himself for it. What Five hadn’t been expecting, however, was the sight of an ape-like torso under the remnants of Luther’s shirt.</p><p>But staring at Luther now, his bare arms and broad (but not <em>that</em> broad) shoulders, he doesn’t look anything other than human.</p><p>The realization perplexes Five in the same way that finding Luther’s half-primate body had.  </p><p>“Then when you found us?” Allison asks, snapping Five’s attention away from Luther.</p><p>Clearly, Five is missing some vital information. He only has so many pieces of the puzzle, there are too many holes for him to fill by himself.</p><p>He needs answers.</p><p>“How long has it been?” Five asks, vaguely aware of Vanya and Ben entering the room. “For me, it’s been two years, four months, and seventeen days since I jumped into the future.”</p><p>“You…you know the exact amount of <em>days?”</em> Allison asks, her tone oddly strangled.  </p><p>Her words make Five bristle, <em>“of course</em> I know the exact amount of days,” he says, giving her a glare. “I’m not an idiot,” and two years in the Apocalypse hasn’t rendered Five’s mind useless. He is a man of numbers, he’s not going to lose track of a measly 868 days.</p><p>Luther is the next one to speak up. “Yeah, uh, for us it’s been a lot longer than that.”</p><p>“Clearly,” Five says. “My question is <em>how</em> long.”  </p><p>“For us,” Vanya pipes up for the first time, looking at Five over the rims of her large reading glasses. “Technically, it’s been twenty-two years since you disappeared.”</p><p>Five pauses, absorbing that for a moment, the implications of Vanya’s words hitting him full force, like a punch to the gut or a jab to the sternum.</p><p>Five feels a little bit breathless with ever-increasing understanding. “What year is it?” he asks, his words coming out hushed but urgent.</p><p>“2025,” Ben answers gently, but he might as well have shouted it for the way the words make Five stumble.</p><p>“That doesn’t…” Five starts, rubbing at his brow, he can feel a headache coming on. “That doesn’t make any sense,” he says, “I was in 2021.”</p><p>“It’s complicated,” Luther says.  </p><p>Five grits his teeth together, whipping his head around to glower at Luther. “Well <em>un</em>complicate it then,” he growls.</p><p>“Maybe we should all calm down and eat our breakfast, yeah?” Klaus begins, his hands out in a placating gesture, ‘Hello’ ‘Goodbye’. “Before it gets cold, and then we can talk about time-travel and all the other mumbo-jumbo.”</p><p>Five ignores him. “What about the Apocalypse?” he asks, trying to understand and failing.</p><p>“Doesn’t happen,” Diego says bluntly, Five hadn’t even noticed him enter the kitchen.</p><p>Five turns to him. “What?”</p><p>“We stopped it,” Diego answers, “back in 2019, we stopped it from happening.”</p><p>Five’s head is buzzing, his skin tingling. He thinks that might be elation, maybe it’s shock, perhaps it’s the feeling of being utterly and profoundly <em>lost.</em></p><p>Five has never viewed himself as a stupid or dense person, but he isn’t getting this.</p><p>“If you stopped the Apocalypse from ever happening,” Five starts, “then how was I there?” If they stopped it, then why did they have to rescue him in the first place? If they stopped it, then why did Five live amongst it for two years? If they stopped it, then why did Five have to bury them?</p><p>“Like Luther said,” Vanya shrugs, “it’s complicated.”</p><p>Five digs the heels of his palms into his eyes and grits his teeth against the angry-hot words pressing up into his mouth. “I swear to <em>God—”</em></p><p>“Time is not a linear thing,” Ben cuts in. “It flows like one, always moving forward and never backward. But what happens when a timeline is uprooted or altered?”</p><p>“It’s lost,” Five answers, feeling more grounded now that someone is <em>finally</em> giving him information, or at least attempting to. “And a new timeline takes its place.”</p><p>“Right,” Ben agrees, nodding, “but where does that timeline go?”</p><p>Five’s thoughts stutter and stumble to a halt, he feels himself pause, considering as he asks, “what?”</p><p>“That old timeline, it’s <em>lost,</em> not gone,” Ben says, “timelines can’t disappear entirely, even if they’re no longer an active timeline.”  </p><p>“The way it was explained to me,” Vanya starts. “Is that time is constructed in building blocks. All the previous timelines become one of those blocks, and if you take one away the whole thing will collapse. All the blocks have to be in the correct spots.”</p><p>“Or you’re left with a time-paradox,” Five says, comprehension starting to dawn. “So, I was stuck in a lost timeline…and you came to get me.”</p><p>Even with some of Five’s questions now answered, this realization has left him with just as many, if not more.</p><p>How did they stop the Apocalypse from happening? What was the cause of it in the first place? What was the change in the second timeline, what was the difference between his siblings dying together, buried under debris, and living to save the world?</p><p>How did they know to rescue Five? How were they able to find him in that place? And for that matter, how in the hell were they able to jump between timelines? How did they figure all of this out? How do they know more about time-travel than Five, the person who can jump through time itself?</p><p>“How did you even know to find me?” Five asks, looking up at his gathered siblings.</p><p>Diego, who has a full beard and new scars adorning his face. Klaus, who seems to be completely sober and unbothered by the ghosts around him. Allison, who has grown into herself and hasn’t whispered a single rumor. Ben, who is alive and grown and holding himself confidently. Vanya, who is in the middle of the pack, unapologetic of taking up space. Luther, who hasn’t pulled rank once in the day Five has been here.</p><p>His siblings, they grew up without Five. There is now a twenty-year age gap between them, over twenty-two years of memories and experiences that Five was not a part of.</p><p>Five tells himself it doesn’t matter, that the realization, the lost time, that it doesn’t hurt.</p><p><em>‘Some things are meant to hurt, Five,’</em> Dolores whispers from her place at the counter.</p><p>Five doesn’t acknowledge her or her words, but she knows he heard them.</p><p>“Nah-uh,” Diego says, wagging his finger at Five as he approaches. “That’s enough time-travel talk for one morning.” He grabs Five by the shoulders and steers him to his seat next to Dolores.</p><p>“But—” Five starts.</p><p>“Nope,” Diego overrides, nudging Five toward the barstool. “Breakfast now, questions later.”</p><p>There’s a part of Five that wants to argue, a part of him that wants to put his foot down and demand answers.</p><p><em>‘Sit down and eat, Five,”</em> Dolores implores, and Five’s decision is made for him.</p><p>“Fine,” he says, hoisting himself up onto the stool.</p><p>“Good,” Diego says, ruffling Five’s hair before he plops himself on the seat next to Five.</p><p>Five absently bats his brother’s hand away and digs into his food, trying not to cherish his eggs too obviously as he listening to the conversations picking up around him.</p><p>It feels loud, having multiple people talking at once, but in a good way.</p><p>The noise makes it impossible for Five to forget, for him to feel alone, for his mind to wander off to a land filled with smoke and ash.</p><p>Klaus almost falls out of his chair at some point and Vanya has to catch him by the arm. Allison snorts her orange juice when Ben leans over and whispers conspiracy in her ear. Luther tries to stealthily steal off of Diego’s plate and Diego threatens to stab him.</p><p>It reminds Five of those nights when they would sneak out to Griddy’s, those stolen moments where Reginald and his wrath felt far away, so they would let loose and just…<em>be,</em> for a while.</p><p>Is that just how it is now?</p><p>Vanya’s book had made it seem as if there were no bridges big enough to mend the gaps between them. She had talked about their siblings as if they weren’t even family anymore.</p><p>How is it that they seem so close now?</p><p>“You okay?” Diego’s soft voice pulls Five from his thoughts. He’s leaning into Five’s space, his eyes concerned.</p><p>Five looks around at his brothers and sisters, listens as Klaus and Allison quietly giggle at something, watches as Luther and Ben pelt each other with balled up pieces of napkin, looks at Vanya as she watches it all with an exasperated, but fond expression on her face.</p><p>“Yeah,” Five says, “I’m good.”  </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I know that Mr. Pennycrumb is supposed to be a pug in the comics, but I took some creative liberties and decided my version of him would be a bit bigger. ;P</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>
  <em> House Tour Time! </em>
</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Academy had forty-two bedrooms, nineteen bathrooms, and sixty-one other miscellaneous rooms. One-hundred and twenty-two rooms altogether. Twenty-four of which Five and his siblings were allowed to roam freely, and another twelve they were ‘permitted entrance’ while under the supervision of Grace, Pogo, or Reginald.</p><p>The other eighty-six rooms were off-limits, no exceptions.</p><p>They may have lived in the mansion, but the Academy was always Reginald’s to rule. They grew up under his strict hand and suffocating reign, always intruders within their own home. Because though Reginald had taken them into his empire, he had done so reluctantly, and he never hid that fact from them.</p><p>Their father hated children after all.</p><p>And they were all born with the inoperable affliction of being children. </p><p>His siblings’ house is nothing like the Academy, which had always felt like a dead thing to Five. A corpse of a building filled with the hushed voices of children and the harsh words of a bitter man. A big empty house devoid of color and joy, a place where kids were fed into its doors to be swallowed up whole, never to truly break free again. </p><p>How did that one song go?</p><p>
  <em>“You can check-out any time you’d like, but you can <span class="u">never</span> leave.” </em>
</p><p>The Academy was their own hellish version of Hotel California. Five had always felt the threat it held in its walls, the danger that lurked around corners. Because there were ears and eyes everywhere, always watching, always waiting for him to slip up.</p><p>The Academy was an extension of Reginald, and how could Five keep secrets or make escape plans when the house itself whispered them back to their father?</p><p>Throughout his whole childhood, the Academy represented the life that Five so desperately wished to run away from.</p><p>When Five did eventually get away, he found himself daydreaming of going back to the place he despised. He imagined walking through the front-gate and pushing open the large doors more times than he can remember. Because no matter how much Five hated the Academy, he would gladly feed himself back into the beast’s maw if it meant he could be with his family again.</p><p>So this, being in a place that didn’t remind Five of the Academy at all, it was such an immense relief it almost felt like a physical weight had been taken off of his chest.</p><p>“This is mom’s room,” Diego says, pointing to the door at the end of the hall.</p><p>They just finished looking at the basement level, which held the rooms that Five is less interested in, <em>gym, bunker, infirmary, armory, shooting range,</em> basically a place to train or excises.</p><p>Now they’re on the main floor, which, just like Ben said; mostly consists of the normal rooms you would find in anyone’s home. Though the fact that this place is a paradoxical phenomenon is still kind of boggling Five’s mind.</p><p>“Grace has a room?” Five asks, tilting his head at the thought.</p><p>Grace had never had her own space at the Academy- though, she hadn’t been allowed to sit at meals either, and she had done exactly that at breakfast this morning. It makes sense that when everything has changed, that things would change for Grace as well.</p><p>Diego levels Five with an expression that Five recognizes from their childhood.</p><p>Diego has always been the closest to Grace, his overprotectiveness tends to show when someone questions Grace or her humanity. </p><p>“Of course she does,” Diego answers.</p><p>Five shrugs, feigning nonchalance. “Well good,” he says, wanting Diego to stop looking at him like he’s waiting to be disappointed. “She probably needs her own space after dealing with you assholes for thirty years.”</p><p>“True,” Klaus says from behind him, leaning forward and draping his arms over Five, bumping Dolores in the process, causing Five to readjust his hold on her.</p><p>“That’s what we thought,” Vanya says, smiling at Five when he turns to her. “So now she has a place to get away and relax.”</p><p>“C’mon D,” Klaus whines, flapping his hand at Diego, almost smacking Five in the face. “You’re holding up the ‘<em>Fabulous Hargreeves’ House Tour!’”</em></p><p>Diego rolls his eyes but moves on, turning around the corner and opening the last door in the hallway. “Right, this is the sunroom,” he says, gesturing forward.</p><p>Five pulls away from Klaus and walks over to Diego, Mr. Pennycrumb trailing behind him. The dog has been at Five’s side since breakfast, pressing up against Five’s leg and obediently following him through the house.</p><p>It’s kind of nice.</p><p>Five had always wanted a dog.</p><p>“Huh,” Five mumbles as he steps into the room, pausing at the doorway.</p><p>The large room is covered in plants, just, absolutely littered with them. There are long-limbed ones hanging from the ceiling, bushy ones crawling up the walls, tiny little ones lining shelves, tree-like ones sitting between the plush-chairs and wooden-tables placed around the room.</p><p>Three of the four walls are made up of windows, letting the rays of the sun in unobscured. The room itself feels alive, like it’s breathing around Five.</p><p><em>‘Oh, Five,’</em> Dolores murmurs from her place in his arms. <em>‘Have you ever seen so much green?’</em></p><p>Five shakes his head mutely, his chin rubbing against the crown of Dolores’ head.</p><p>No, he hasn’t.</p><p>Five grew up in a house full of somber colors and the mounted heads of his father’s prey hanging from the walls. Even when he and his siblings snuck out, there wasn’t much nature to see, not in a city full of people and skyscrapers.</p><p>Then he spent over two years in a desolate wasteland, where Five wondered if anything organic or living even<em> could</em> grow in the ash and dust that covered the earth.</p><p>Five steps into the room, stone-floor cold against his socked-feet, sunshine glittering in through the windows, dust dancing in the beams of light and shimmering across Five’s eyes.</p><p>Five reaches out and runs his fingers through the dangling leaves of a hanging plant, turning in a slow circle so he can take in the room in its entirety.</p><p>“Like it?” someone asks from the doorway, snapping Five back to himself. He straightens, feeling vaguely foolish for drifting while in front of an audience. </p><p>“Yes,” Five says, clearing his throat and pulling his hand away from the leafy vines, tucking his awe away for later.</p><p><em>‘Five,’</em> Dolores admonishes lightly, <em>‘who are you trying to be professional for?’ </em></p><p>Five shushes her, flapping his hand at Dolores, which sends a jolt of pain through Five’s left wrist all the way up into his elbow. Five tucks his hand back around Dolores’ waist with a wince, ignoring the smug look she sends him.</p><p>“It’s alright, I guess,” Five continues, shrugging as he walks farther into the room.</p><p>There’s a wrap-around window-seat in one corner, stacked with pillows and someone’s abandoned book. Two couches sit in the middle of the room, a plush rug under them and a coffee table between them. There’s a large desk that catches Five’s eye, tucked under the vines of a dangling plant, almost hidden behind the potted-tree next to it.</p><p>Five thinks it’s safe to say he has found his favorite room in the house. </p><p>“Just <em>‘alright’</em>, huh?” Allison asks from the doorway, Five hadn’t noticed her arrival.</p><p>When Klaus had announced that it was ‘House Tour Time’, she and Luther had stayed behind to help Grace clean up the kitchen; Allison must have finished and decided to join them.</p><p>“It’s fine,” Five says, turning away from his siblings so they don’t see the edges of his mouth curling into a smile.</p><p>“Oh really?” Allison hums, something <em>knowing</em> in her tone. “Because there’s a bit of a bet going on, and a few people placed their money on <em>this</em> being your favorite room.”</p><p>It suddenly occurs to Five, that his siblings must have been planning his rescue for weeks, if not longer. It isn’t easy to jump through time, not to mention dimensions and lost timelines themselves.</p><p>Which means his brothers and sisters have been anticipating Five’s arrival; they already had clothes in his size, they had supplements and medicines at the ready, they had food and water and bandages waiting for him.</p><p>They had time to get prepared for Five, to place bets on what parts of their house he may or may not like.</p><p>Something warm and trembling unfurls in Five’s chest and he has to hold his breath against it for a moment, just until the feeling passes.</p><p>“Well, you’re gonna lose out on your money then,” Five says, walking over to a hanging chair and gently placing Dolores down into it. “Because I don’t have <em>favorite rooms,</em> because I’m not a child.”</p><p>Klaus scoffs at him, “I’m sorry, but I call bullshit, on both accounts.”</p><p>“C’mon Five,” Vanya wheedles, “I think you like the sunroom, I think you <em>looove</em> the sunroom.”</p><p>“I think you <em>fifty-bucks</em> the sunroom,” Ben says.</p><p>“Don’t cheat,” Diego hisses at them. “It doesn’t count if he just sides with who he likes.”</p><p>“That wasn’t in the handbook,” Vanya snarks, which is…Vanya can snark?</p><p>“It’s in <em>my</em> handbook,” Klaus shoots back.</p><p>“Regardless of what the handbook <em>does</em> or does <em>not</em> say,” Five starts, turning away from Dolores to face his siblings. “It doesn’t matter, because I don’t have a favorite room.”</p><p><em>‘Play nice, Five,’</em> Dolores chides from behind him.</p><p>Ben hums a disbelieving note at the same time Diego mutters, “we’ll see,” under his breath, like it’s a challenge, or maybe a dare.</p><p>Five blinks out into the hallway without a word, walking back into the living room and leaving his siblings to follow him or be left behind.</p><p>Mr. Pennycrumb comes prancing out of the sunroom, claws clicking on hardwood. He catches up to Five and huffs up at him in disapproval, like he’s annoyed that Five would dare leave his sight.</p><p>Five pats Mr. Pennycrumb’s head in apology. </p><p>“What about Dolores?” Allison asks from the back of the group, surprising Five with the question.</p><p>Five throws her a glance over his shoulder, shrugging. “She’s fine,” he says, “she likes the sunroom.”</p><p>Allison smirks and sends Diego and Klaus a smug look for some reason, raising a condescending eyebrow at the two of them. The expression looks exactly the same on her now as it had when they were kids.</p><p>“That doesn’t count,” Diego says.</p><p>“Well, I mean…” Allison starts, spreading her hands out and seesawing them in the air.</p><p><em>“Okay,”</em> Ben interrupts, strolling up to Five and taking the lead. “This house tour is gonna last all day at this rate.”</p><p>“Agreed,” Klaus says clapping his hands together, “let’s get hustlin’ people.”</p><p>They finish walking the first floor with minimal disruptions and only a moderate amount of bickering. Stopping in the kitchen to kidnap Luther before they loop back around into the foyer so they can head to the second floor.</p><p>
  
</p><p>Normally Five would just teleport to the top of the stairs rather than waste the time and energy climbing them. But he’s still having some trouble with his jumps, and it’s much easier for him to blink from place to place once he has a vague sense of the layout. </p><p>It’s why he insisted on being shown around.</p><p>That, and his curiosity.</p><p>When Five reaches the top of the stairs however, he’s suddenly hit with a very familiar sensation.</p><p>A chill runs through him, making all the hairs on Five’s body stand on end. There’s a tingle at the base of his skull that skitters along his brain, before the feeling dissipates out his fingers and toes.</p><p>Five jerks in his surprise, making a half-chocked noise that turns into a harsh cough half-way through. Five twists around, flinging out his arms to catch his balance.</p><p>Mr. Pennycrumb makes a low whining sound next to Five. His siblings have all frozen around him, staring at Five in bewildered confusion. </p><p>But Five hardly pays them any attention, because that was the feeling he gets when he<em> jumps. </em>And not one of his smaller jumps, or even a spatial one. It felt like when Five tries to pull off a large warp, or when he tugs on time itself.</p><p>Except, Five hadn’t done that, he hadn’t pulled on time or space, so what the hell <em>was</em> that?!</p><p><em>“What the </em>hell<em> was that!?”</em> he blurts, unclenching and re-clenching his fists at his sides. </p><p>“You…You <em>felt</em> that?” Diego asks, eyes wide and shocked. </p><p>Five glares at him, scoffing, <em>“of course</em> I felt that,” he says, waving a hand in the direction of the stairs, where half of his siblings are still standing amid the steps, looking up at Five with varying expressions of disbelief.</p><p>“Oh.”</p><p>“…I didn’t know…”</p><p>“Wow, um…”</p><p>“Well, <em>that </em>would have been nice to know.”</p><p>Five growls at them, “if anyone would like to formulate a <em>coherent sentence </em>within the next week, that would be nice.”</p><p>“What did it feel like?” Ben asks abruptly, stopping Five short. </p><p>“What?” he asks, turning to Ben.</p><p>“What did it feel like?” Ben repeats, giving Five a curious look.</p><p>Five takes a moment to contemplate his answer. “Like I was jumping,” he says, and then shakes his head to himself, because that isn’t quite right. “Or well, like I was in the <em>middle</em> of a jump.” When he’s in-between, when he’s in two places and nowhere, all at once.</p><p>“What you just felt was a dimensional shift,” Ben says, drawing Five’s attention back to him. “The basement and ground floor are sitting within the same wavelength, but the second and third floors are on a different one.”</p><p>Five absorbs this information for a second. “We just <em>walked</em> through dimensions?”</p><p>“Uh, basically,” Klaus says.</p><p>“The house is made up of two dimensions,” Ben goes on, “the top of the stairs is where it shifts from one to the other… But we, uh, didn’t know that you would <em>feel</em> it.”</p><p>“Huh,” Five nods, turning to squint at the air along the top-step.</p><p>Time and Space aren’t something that Five can outrightly see, they’re something he <em>feels,</em> pulling at him or prodding Five along. But sometimes, if he tugs back, he’ll be able to see the way they respond to him.</p><p>Five clenches his fists and activates his powers, but he doesn’t actually pull himself through a jump. He watches the air instead, the way that it ripples in front of him and absorbs the blue light emanating from his hands.</p><p>Five reaches out and pokes at it, and the pocket of energy <em>moves.</em></p><p>Five drops his hand and his powers, taking a step back from the portal before he accidentally rips it open. “Well,” he says, something tingling under his skin. “That is an interesting development.”</p><hr/><p>Five walks into the large in-home bowling alley, complete with a mini snack bar in the far corner and a row of ugly bowling shoes stacked on a shelf, and lets his head flop back on his shoulders, huffing out a sigh of complete and utter exhaustion up at the ceiling.</p><p>“I hate this place,” he says, closing his eyes against the absurdity of it all.</p><p>“No, you don’t,” Ben replies, smirk evident in his voice. “You <em>love</em> it.”</p><p>“No,” Five shakes his head, refusing to admit it. “I hate it, I absolutely <em>hate it. </em>It makes no sense— it breaks all the laws of physics, both established and theoretical. I <em>hate</em> it. Someone give me the calculations that made this monstrosity possible <em>right now.” </em></p><p>“Nerd,” Klaus teases and then yelps when Five hits him.</p><p>Five blows out an exasperated breath and stomps up the three steps that lead into the room, he glares at the red plastic chairs, and the two bowling lanes, and the stupid ‘Wet Floor’ sign sitting in front of him, and asks, “which one of you decided to include a bowling alley in your house?”</p><p>Allison walks over to Five, giving the room a brief glance before she replies, “none of us, actually.”</p><p>Five squints up at her, “none of you?”</p><p>“The house was a gift,” Allison says, giving a slight shrug. “We didn’t know it was being built until it was already finished.”</p><p>“We’re pretty sure the bowling alley was meant to be an inside joke,” Klaus says from behind them. “But none of us ever asked.”</p><p>“Wait,” Five slashes his hands through the air, shaking his head. “This place was a <em>gift?”</em></p><p>“Uh, yeah?” Luther answers.</p><p>“What? You thought <em>we</em> built this place?” Diego throws back.</p><p>“You were <em>gifted</em> a multi-dimensional house?” Five asks, voice rising in pitch. “What—what… Meaning, you <em>know</em> someone who can manipulate transdimensional realms and the laws of quantum physics!?” </p><p>“Um,” Vanya starts, “yes. Things have changed over the last few years. We know a lot of strange and powerful people now.”</p><p>Five turns to her, theories already running through his mind.</p><p>Does that mean that this house and his siblings’ ability to time-travel are connected in some way? By the same person perhaps? Or are they completely unrelated? If they were, does that mean that the house was built with some sort of technology, like the briefcase they had used to time-travel? Or have they found someone else with abilities like them? Someone who can bend dimensional realms to their will? Are these the same people who helped his brothers and sisters to travel through lost timelines? Did these people help them to find Five in the first place?</p><p>“Enlighten me,” Five says, leaning toward Vanya.</p><p>“Nope!” Klaus blurts, clapping his hands and shaking his head adamantly. “No more science talk. We have one last room to check off for the ‘Fabulous Hargreeves’ House Tour’, and this bus stops for no one.”</p><p>Five glares at his brother. “One last room doesn’t matter. What <em>matters,</em> is me finally getting some answers to m—”</p><p>Klaus wags a finger in Five’s face, interrupting him, “but this room is the most important, the <em>‘piéce de résistance,’</em> if you will.”</p><p>Five smacks Klaus’ hand away from his face. “And what is so ‘important’ about this room, Klaus?” he snaps.</p><p>Klaus throws out his arms, like he’s presenting something magnificent, “your bedroom, of course!”</p><p>That brings Five up short. His sarcastic retort dies on his tongue at the same time his brain sort of, <em>stops,</em> for a second.</p><p>Of course he would have a bedroom, his siblings didn’t pick him up from the Apocalypse on a whim, they prepared for Five. It makes sense, of course he would have a room in their house, he will be living here, it’s obvious that he would have his own space. </p><p>Five, just, hadn’t thought about it.</p><p>“My…” Five starts, clearing his throat when his voice comes out too quiet. “My bedroom?”</p><p>“Yeah, dude,” Ben says, giving Five one of his small smiles. “We were saving it for last.”</p><p>“But we can just skip it,” Diego says, giving a shrug as he turns away. “I mean, if you want—”</p><p>“I don’t,” Five interrupts, stopping Diego from leaving. “Let’s just…Get this over with.”</p><p>Five twists away from the bowling alley and marches toward the door, Mr. Pennycrumb happily trotting next to him. Five valiantly pretends that he doesn’t see the smug/amused looks his siblings are throwing each other over the top of his head, and ducks around Luther to get back into the hallway.</p><p>Klaus comes skipping out of the room, walking past Five before he twists around and gestures to a door down the hall. “And <em>this,”</em> he announces with a flourish, “is your room, Número Cinco,” he says as he flings the door open.</p><p>Mr. Pennycrumb, for the first time all morning, dashes from Five’s side. He gives an excited bark and darts into the room, leaving Five behind. Five suddenly understand why the dog was getting upset whenever Five warped away from him without warning.</p><p>Five follows the dog into the room without a second thought.</p><p>He stops in the middle of the room a moment later.</p><p>It sort of feels reminiscent of the moment Five walked into the house yesterday and realized it was more than it seemed. That same punch-drunk awe hits him all over again, and Five stares at the room in stunned wonderment.</p><p>The room itself is shaped like a vertical pentagon, reaching up, up, up, where there are wooden beams crisscrossing below the ceiling but above the high windows.</p><p>There seems to be three levels to the room; the main level, made up of hardwood floors and most the furniture. The second level, which is a barred off loft that overlooks the rest of the room. And the third level, made up of open space and high rafters that Five is sure he will make use of. </p><p>Five blinks at it, giving the room a quick scan.</p><p>There is a large corner desk tucked under the loft, next to it is a dog bed, where Mr. Pennycrumb is sprawled in excitement. Across from that, in the opposite corner, is a red hammock hanging from the rafters. There are a few leafy plants dangling from the rafters as well, they remind Five of the sunroom downstairs.</p><p>One wall is made up of red brick, and it has bookshelves hung from it and two plush chairs facing it, sat on top of a thick rug with a little table between them. The other three walls are a light blue, and they must be chalkboard paint, because they are covered in doodles and messages from his family.</p><p>There are messy drawings done in all sorts of colors; one of a dog that looks vaguely like Mr. Pennycrumb, another of what Five thinks is supposed to be them as children. There are music notes descending along one wall, which Five is sure make up some part of a song. A chalk outline of someone’s body decorates another. Random chalk handprints and footprints are walking up one wall.  There are miscellaneous quotes that are lost on Five, but that are clearly Ben’s handwriting.</p><p>But the doodle that stands out against all the others, is the large rainbow words declaring, ‘<strong>WELCOME HOME, FIVE!!!</strong>’ bigger and bolder than any of the other drawing.</p><p>“Oh,” Five mumbles, feeling choked by it all.</p><p>“Ah!” Klaus exclaims, “I almost forgot,” he walks in and flicks a switch.</p><p>The room is suddenly bathed in purple and Five glances up at the twinkling lights wrapped around the rafters and the railing of the loft.</p><p>“There,” Klaus says, putting his hands on his hips. “Put those bad boys up myself.”</p><p>“And nearly brained yourself,” Ben says under his breath.</p><p>Luther pointedly clears his throat from the doorway.</p><p><em>“Luther</em> and I put them up,” Klaus amends, “he was the brawn, and I was the brain.”</p><p>Diego scoffs, turning it into an unconvincing cough a second later, while Allison and Vanya outrightly laugh.</p><p>Klaus ignores them though, turning to Five and giving him a wide smile. “Like it?” he asks, just like Vanya had done in the sunroom.</p><p>Except, this time, Five is having some trouble pulling himself together. He suddenly wants Dolores, regrets leaving her downstairs, because Five feels wrong-footed and tongue-tied, and she would know what to do and say, or at the very least, she would be something to ground him.</p><p>There’s a warm weight against Five’s leg, a cold nose pressing into his palm. Five glances down at Mr. Pennycrumb and big brown eyes stare back up at Five. It reminds Five to breathe, to take a deep breath so he can shove aside the building sensation of <em>(warm, safe, alive, loved)</em> away to be dealt with later.</p><p>“Yeah,” Five says, nodding as he coughs roughly into his fist. “It’s...good.”</p><p>“Wow,” Diego snorts, “high praise from Mr. Five.”</p><p>Five ignores him, “what’s up there?” he asks, jabbing his finger toward the loft. But he doesn’t wait for an answer, blinking up there so he can see it for himself.</p><p>The loft is on the smaller side, a little wider than the broom-closet of a bedroom Vanya had back at the Academy. The way that it overlooks the other three-quarters of the room makes the space seem bigger though.</p><p>Unalike the main level of the room, this one has windows. The walls are slanted so they tilt toward the bed, which is a mattress built into the floor in the middle of the loft.</p><p>There isn’t anything to do up here but sleep or hide away, but Five likes how high it is, the fact that there isn’t a latter, so no one else could get to him.</p><p>It’s like this room was designed for him specifically.</p><p>“So what’s the verdict?” Allison calls from below.</p><p>Five leans over the railing, looking down at his siblings. “What?”</p><p>“Which is it?” Diego asks, crossing his arms over his chest. “The sunroom or your bedroom?”</p><p>“Gotta pick a favorite, Five!” Klaus chirps.</p><p>“We have a bit of a bet going on,” Luther tells him.</p><p>Five drapes his arms over the railing, giving Luther one of his smirks. “So I’ve heard,” he drawls.</p><p>“C’mon Five,” Vanya says. “Which room is your favorite, be honest.”</p><p>Five warps back down to them, strolling out the door with Mr. Pennycrumb by his side. “Hm,” he ponders aloud, mocking. “It’s so hard to pick. I mean, there’s Grace’s sewing room and the shooting range, Luther’s bedroom and the downstairs hall closet. How can I possibly choose?”</p><p><em>“Five!”</em> half of his siblings call after him, exasperated and groaning.</p><p>Five smirks to himself.</p><p>His brothers and sisters may have changed in many substantial ways, but when it really comes down to it, at the base, they’re all the same.</p><p>
  
</p><hr/><p>“I read your book, by the way,” Five tells Vanya later that afternoon. They’re in the sunroom; Vanya sat curled up on a couch, Five sprawled out across the window-seat so he can soak up the sun, Dolores at his side. “Found it about three months after I was first stranded.”</p><p>Vanya looks up from the paperback she was reading. “Yeah?”</p><p>Five fishes ‘Extra Ordinary’ out of his hoodie pocket, flashing the cover at Vanya. “Pretty ballsy,” he says, rolling his head to the side to catch her eye. “Giving up the family secrets like that. I’m sure that went over well.”</p><p>Vanya gives him a rueful smile, “it didn’t.”</p><p>Five glances away from her, absently leafing his way through the pages. “I’m sure it didn’t.” Five pauses, laying the book down on his stomach before he asks, “did he read it?”</p><p>Vanya isn’t stupid, so she knows who Five is talking about. “No,” she says, “he didn’t.”</p><p>Five huffs, smirking up at the ceiling. “Figures.”</p><p>Vanya shuffles off the couch, Five watches her as she walks over to him, plopping herself on the floor in front of the window-seat. She reaches out and slips the book off his stomach, examining it. “I didn’t think I’d ever see this again, actually.”</p><p>“No?” Five asks.</p><p>Vanya shakes her head. “No. This is— this is the only one left.” </p><p>Five props himself up on an elbow, looking down at her. “What do you mean?”</p><p>Vanya shrugs, passing the book back to him. “I never wrote it in this timeline, it doesn’t exist here.”</p><p>Five glances down at ‘Extra Ordinary’, at the version of Vanya that he remembers, at the book that tore out his heart. “This is the sole copy,” he says, not a question.</p><p>“Yeah,” Vanya answers anyway.</p><p>The first time Five had read Vanya’s book, he had been angry.</p><p>He had been angry at his siblings, for allowing Reginald to ruin them in all the ways that mattered. He had been angry at Vanya, for writing about him, for sharing the secrets he had only given to her. He had been angry at himself, for missing it, for not being there, for getting himself stuck in the future so very far away from them all.</p><p>Five had been angry, because it was so much easier to be angry than it was to feel betrayed, and shaken, and hurt, and sad.</p><p>Five runs his fingers over the title, the ash-stained cover. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” he whispers to her, because Vanya has always been the easiest to talk to.</p><p>Vanya couldn’t understand what it was like to have to fight for everything, to fight against their father, to fight against each other, to fight for their place in the bullshit lineup, to fight because fighting was what they were created to do.</p><p>But that made it easier to go to Vanya when things got overwhelming, when Five’s nose wouldn’t stop bleeding and he couldn’t make the shaking stop, when the sorrow and rage inside of him burned so hot he thought he might explode with it.</p><p>The fact that she was ordinary made it easier to reveal the hidden parts of himself to her. Because Five knew that even if she couldn’t understand what it was like to be in the Umbrella Academy, Vanya always understood <em>him.</em></p><p>It had been a cutting betrayal, reading her book only to find that she had given his secrets away, that she had uncovered those pieces of himself that he had only ever shown her.</p><p>“Me too,” she says, pitch matching Five’s.</p><p>Five moves his gaze from the Vanya printed face, to the real and living one in front of him. They’re at eye level like this, with Five laying on the bench and Vanya sitting on the floor. Five watches her for a moment, studying this new version of his sister.</p><p>Her hair is shorter, cut to frame her face in a way that suits her. Her bangs are gone, replaced with thick-rimmed glasses and a small constellation of freckles along her nose. She looks brighter, and happier, and more alive than Five has ever seen her, and he wonders how it happened, what changed in the time since she wrote ‘Extra Ordinary’ to now.</p><p>He missed out on that too.</p><p>He’s missed out on a lot of things.</p><p>Because it may have been two years for Five, but it’s been twenty-two for Vanya. And while it had hurt, finding out that she had broken his trust- Five vanishing that day had hurt Vanya far worse than she had ever hurt him.</p><p><em>“Losing a brother is unbearable, losing a best friend is heartbreaking,”</em> her book had said, <em>“losing both at once is something far worse.”</em></p><p>Five’s head hurts, his eyes burn, there’s a distant roar in his ears. “I didn’t mean to leave,” he tells her, because it’s true, because Five needs her to understand, because the words have been slicing into his tongue for years, and Five’s mouth is raw and bloodied from holding them in. “I thought I was coming right back.”</p><p>Vanya reaches out and takes his hand, lacing their fingers together, like when they were kids, back when they knew each other. “I know,” she says.</p><p>But she can’t, she can’t know, there is no way she could ever possibly know. Because Five was alone for two years, with only the imagined ghosts of his siblings there to keep him company; and now he has them back, but there is a twenty-two-year gap between them, and Five has no one to blame but himself.</p><p>“I missed you,” he says, so quietly that if Vanya weren’t right in front of Five, he’s not sure she would have heard him.</p><p>Vanya’s eyes are bright and shining, her nose twitches in that way that means she’s trying not to cry. But then she blinks, and there are tears on her face and Five isn’t sure what he’s supposed to do anymore.  </p><p>“Vanya—” he starts, cutting himself off when she moves from the floor to kneel over him.</p><p>She leans down and stuffs her arms under his back and behind his head, gently pulling him toward her. For a moment Five isn’t sure what’s going on, startled and confused, before he realizes that this is a hug, that Vanya is hugging him. </p><p>Five lays there, frozen for a long second, hands stuttering at his sides.</p><p>Vanya’s fingers are tangled in his too long hair, her breathing is just as ragged as his, Five can feel a slight tremble in her limbs. She’s hovering over him slightly, probably to spare his hurt ribs, and the position of it is uncomfortable and awkward, but it’s sort of wonderful too.</p><p><em>‘Hug her back, Five,’</em> Dolores says after a beat, and it’s her voice that spurs Five into wrapping his arms around Vanya, his fingers bunching up the fabric of her sweater. </p><p>“I missed you too,” Vanya says, her words watery. “I wish you didn’t know how much.”</p><p>Five’s breath stutters, he closes his eyes against it, pressing his forehead into her shoulder. <em>Oh,</em> he thinks to himself, maybe she does understand. </p><p>Five holds onto Vanya tighter and reminds himself to breathe.</p><p>“Awwe,” someone coos from the doorway, startling them both into flinching apart. “Did I interrupt a tender moment?” Diego teases, waltzing into the room.</p><p>Five pulls himself up into a sitting position, throwing Diego a glare as he rapidly blinks the extra moister from of his eyes. <em>“No,”</em> he says.</p><p>“Yes,” Vanya says at the same time, swiping tears from her eyes as she rights herself.</p><p>Five sends Vanya a betrayed look, and she has the audacity to <em>laugh</em> at him.</p><p>“How touching,” Diego says, snickering when Five flips him off. “C’mon you crybabies, it’s time to eat,” he says, waving them toward the door. “Luther and mom made grilled cheese and tomato soup.”</p><p>Five scoffs as he swings his legs off the bench. “We already ate today,” he dismisses, twisting to grab Dolores.</p><p>He thinks maybe he’ll head up to his bedroom, he hasn’t been back there since this morning, and Five wants to show it to Dolores. He also needs a moment alone, he feels drained and emptied out after his talk with Vanya, he needs some time to recharge and think.</p><p>Five turns back around and grinds to a halt when he realizes that both Diego and Vanya are staring at him with identical expressions of <em>(concern? sadness? worry?)</em> on their faces.</p><p>“What?” Five snaps, feeling caught off guard and abruptly put on the spot.</p><p>“Three meals a day, Five,” Diego says, and his voice is soft and kind, like he’s talking to a child. It sets Five’s teeth on edge, makes something uncomfortable crawl under his skin. “You don’t… You don’t have to ration anymore. Not here.”</p><p>Five’s fingers twitch where they are clutching to Dolores. He feels the buzz of space around him, the energy of it tugging at him. He wants to pull on it, to let it swallow him up, so he doesn’t have to deal with this conversation.</p><p>Five isn’t an idiot, he knows that they don’t have to limit their food here. Because the earth is safe and whole and green, not a desolate wasteland of brimstone and fire. Because instead of crawling through the collapsed remains of the world searching for anything, <em>anything</em> even remotely edible, people just hop in their cars and go to the grocery store.</p><p>Five knows this.</p><p>“Yes, obviously,” Five says, standing up and ducking around Diego and leafy plants in order to get to the door. “You two take things too seriously. Klaus isn’t the sole proprietor of morbid humor.”</p><p>Five doesn’t want to continue this conversation, or be called out on his blatant lie, so he blinks away from the sunroom into the kitchen. Hopefully, Diego and Vanya drop it, because Five is done with the subject.</p><p>“Just in time,” Allison says when Five appears behind her, not phased in the least. “It’s lunchtime.”</p><p>“You don’t say,” Five replies dryly, shifting Dolores in his arms as he gives Allison one of his tooth-filled smiles, one that feels sharp and cutting across his lips.</p><p>Allison raises an eyebrow at him but chooses not to comment, she was always one of the smarter ones. “Luther and mom made tomato soup and grilled cheese,” she says, ladling some red soup into a bowl. “Mom warmed some chicken noodle up for you though. Easier on your stomach, less grease.” </p><p>Five huffs, scuffing his socked toes against the tile floor.</p><p>Five tries to unhunch his shoulders, to stop clutching to Dolores so rigidly. But his skin is crawling and too tight around his bones. His ears are buzzing lowly and there’s an uncomfortable fluttering, like dust from a moth’s wings, (like soot and ash) creeping up from his stomach and tickling his lungs.</p><p><em>‘Take a breath,’</em> Dolores whispers to him, <em>‘you’re fine.’ </em></p><p>Five doesn’t feel fine, he feels wound too tight. Like there’s larva and infection wiggling under his skin, leaking into every part of him. And if Five isn’t careful he might rip right open, and everything will gush out of him and spill to the floor.</p><p>“Five?” Allison’s voice is soft, but it still makes Five flinch, his eyes snapping back open. He hadn’t realized he closed them.</p><p>Allison is looking at him like she knows, like she can see the way that the Apocalypse has stained Five’s skin. Maybe she can, maybe she can see it in the same way that Five can feel it.  </p><p>“How about we ditch the others, and you and me go eat out on the porch?” she asks. “Lunch can get rowdy, and I wouldn’t mind some peace and quiet.”</p><p>Five’s tongue is glued to the roof of his mouth, his chest is clamping down around the air he tries to pull in, his head is pounding.</p><p>Allison doesn’t seem to mind his silence. “Mr. Pennycrumb is playing in the yard,” she tells him, “why don’t you go get him, and I’ll meet you out there?”</p><p>Five doesn’t answer, choosing to head for the backdoor instead.</p><p>Fresh air hits him like a wave, the taste of grass and the sound of rustling trees, and suddenly Five needs to touch it, to feel it against his skin, to remind himself this is real.</p><p>He stumbles toward the stairs, setting Dolores down as gently as he can with tremors working their way up his arms. And then he wobbles down the steps and bolts into the yard on unsteady legs.</p><p>Five doesn’t make it very far before his knees abruptly buckle, but it doesn’t matter because Five feels like he can finally breathe. Even if his inhales are shaky and erratic, even if it throws him into a coughing fit that has him hunching over himself and clutching at his ribs.</p><p>It doesn’t matter, because Five no longer feels like he’s being eaten from the inside out.</p><p>Suddenly, there’s a cold nose pressing against his cheek and neck, nudging at Five until he sits up in confusion. And then Mr. Pennycrumb is standing on Five, his front paws balanced on Five’s thighs as he sniffs and rubs against Five’s face.</p><p>Five huffs at the dog, a noise that’s in-between a breathless-laugh and a watery-scoff. Five feels a little more stable with the weight of Mr. Pennycrumb pressing into him, Five reaches out and tangles his fingers in Mr. Pennycrumb’s black fur.</p><p>Mr. Pennycrumb leans into Five’s chest then, resting his head on Five’s shoulder, like he’s doing his best to give Five a hug.</p><p>Five closes his eyes, burying his face into Mr. Pennycrumb’s back. If he tilts his head just right, he can even hear the dog’s heartbeat, fast and strong under Five’s ear.</p><p>Mr. Pennycrumb makes a low inquisitive sound, like he’s asking what’s wrong.</p><p>Five sniffles into his fur, shaking his head. “Nothing,” he says. “Everything’s fine.”</p><p>Five hugs Mr. Pennycrumb to his chest and lets himself tip backward, laying down with Mr. Pennycrumb sprawled out over his front.</p><p>It makes his healing ribs ache, but Five doesn’t care.</p><p>There is a warm and breathing animal on his chest, and cool damp grass slowly seeping in through his pajama bottoms, and the sun is shining brightly down on the both of them.</p><p>Five closes his eyes and soaks it all in. “Everything’s fine,” he says again, holding onto Mr. Pennycrumb.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Whoops, this chapter kind of got away from me.</p><p>I hope the blueprints were helpful and not distracting. I drew them up as references for myself, but then I realized that they might be helpful for you all, too. :)</p><p>Can you tell I'm living vicariously!?</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>So sorry for the wait on this one guys. Real-life really went for the jugular and my writing kind of took a backseat. </p><p>I wanna thank my friend Rays for being there for me as we both simultaneously struggled with writing our Chapter Five(s). I'm glad we get to scream to each other about our fics, it makes it easier. ;) </p><p><strong> TW: </strong> For a wee bit of gore.</p><p><strong> Heed Tags: </strong> I've updated the tags, also added the <em> Graphic Depictions of Violence </em> warning. Just because I decided that some of Five's flashbacks to the Apocalypse are somewhat graphic. </p><p>Okay, enjoy!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It takes approximately seven minutes and forty-three seconds for one of Five’s siblings to come find him.</p><p>“Ughh<em>hhh</em>,” Klaus lets out a long and exaggerated sigh as he plops himself down next to Five, stretching out with a groan. He lays back, pillowing his head on his folded arms as he gazes up at the sky.</p><p>Five watches Klaus out of the corner of his eye for a long moment, not bothering to acknowledging his brother’s presence beyond a suspicious glance.   </p><p>“Y’know,” Klaus starts without any preamble, because Klaus has never needed a partner in order to have a conversation. “I think you’ve got the right idea with this. We should all come out here and lay in the grass more often. Be one with the Earth, let Mother Nature caress us against her supple bosoms and all that jazz.”</p><p>Five lets out a heaving sigh, rolling his eyes heavenward in exasperation. But there’s a smile playing at his lips as he replies, “you are truly a poet, Klaus.”</p><p>Klaus slings one of his legs over Five’s own, his leg crossed along Five’s to hook with Five’s opposite ankle.</p><p>Klaus had always been lanky when they were kids, forever ahead of the rest of them when it came to growth-spurts, (something he never failed to lord over them while growing up) and that obviously had not changed in Five’s absence.</p><p>Because here Klaus is, fully grown, still lanky and long-limbed, but with an air of confidence that he never possessed before, so many years ahead of Five.</p><p>“Don’t I know it, dear Number Five,” Klaus says, fluttering a hand through the air. “Me and my bleeding heart.”</p><p>Five blows out a breath that might’ve been considered a laugh had it come from someone else.  </p><p>They lay in a comfortable silence for a few minutes, watching the clouds drift by, listening to the rustling of trees and the far-off sound of what Five thinks might be chickens.</p><p>“So,” Five starts, glancing over to Klaus. “How long have you been sober?”</p><p>That’s a question that has been niggling at Five since he got here. Vanya hadn’t gone into great detail about Klaus in her book- being that the two of them had drifted apart during their adolescent years and hadn’t been in much contact with each other since Vanya left the Academy at age seventeen.  </p><p>But she had talked about Klaus and his drug addiction, the downward spiral he had taken in their teenage years that only led to more dangerous habits and even worse coping mechanisms.</p><p>Vanya had called it a cry for attention, comparing Klaus’ drug addiction to Allison’s need to be seen by anyone that would look in her direction.</p><p>It hadn’t surprised Five in the least, finding out that his brother fell fully into that rabbit-hole. Klaus was already well on his way there, even before Five got lost in time.</p><p>Imagine Five’s surprise, then, at finding Klaus clean and sober without any indication of it ever having been different.</p><p>“Wow,” Klaus says, voice loud, like he intended to say something else. “There’s never any pussyfooting around with you, is there?”</p><p>Five rolls his head against the ground, grass tickling at his right ear and Mr. Pennycrumb’s nose brushing against his throat, he gives Klaus a flat look.  </p><p>Klaus sighs, his whole chest moving with the action. He glances back up toward the sky as he answers. “Been sober six years,” he pauses, pursing his lips. “Though, if you want to get <em>technical</em> about it, I had a … <em>minor </em>slip up, a few years back. So, I guess that knocks me back down to four.”</p><p>Five watches Klaus for a moment, takes in the way his breathing is slow and even and deliberate. The way his left hand is bunched up in the fabric over his chest like he’s clutching to something underneath. The way that he is carefully and adamantly not making eye contact with Five.</p><p>“Congratulations,” Five softly says, making sure there isn’t anything in his tone that could be misconstrued as judgmental.</p><p>Five isn’t tactful in most things, he doesn’t have the time or the patience for it. He used to get in trouble for that, their father lecturing and/or punishing Five after missions for his brash behavior or unnecessary risk-taking.  </p><p>But just because Five doesn’t usually follow protocol or bother to tiptoe around people’s feelings, doesn’t mean he isn’t capable of it.</p><p>Klaus rolls his head against the lawn in a mirror of Five, watching Five with an oddly open expression for a drawn-out moment. “Thanks.”</p><p>Five nods mutely, turning back to look at the expanse of the blue sky. Mr. Pennycrumb is still a warm weight against him, he’s melted into Five, his soft snores vibrating into Five’s chest and arms where he has them wrapped around the dog.</p><p>“So, you’ve found alternative ways for dealing with the ghosts then?” Five asks, not taking his eyes off of the wispy clouds above them.  </p><p>Klaus makes a soft scoffing noise from beside him, shifting where he lay. But he doesn’t take his leg off of Five, so he must not be truly bothered by the question.</p><p>“No ghosts for me to avoid here,” Klaus mumbles, rubbing at his face with the heel of his hand. “But it turns out the old man was right about at least one thing— <em>though it still pains me to admit it.</em> Apparently, I can do more than just hear and see into ‘the other side’. Which I guess makes sense. Same way I can summon ghosts I can banish them too.”</p><p>Klaus raises a hand, and it glows a faint, but very familiar blue. It shouldn’t surprise Five to see it, shouldn’t bring goosebumps to his skin, shouldn’t make his stomach swoop with something he can’t name, but it does.</p><p>Five thought his ability was the only one that manifested in that particular way.</p><p>Out of all their siblings, it was only Allison that had anything similar to Five’s visible indicator. It didn’t affect her, but whenever she rumored anyone, their eyes would turn a milky shade of white, drowning out their pupils.</p><p>Five used to wonder why she and he were the only ones that had that odd display of their power. But maybe it wasn’t that they were the only ones, but that their other siblings just hadn’t exhibited those signs yet.</p><p>“Turns out being sober is good for a few things,” Klaus goes on, oblivious to Five’s ruminating. “I got a better handle on my powers, and now I control them instead of letting them control me.”</p><p>The blue light fades from his fingers and Klaus lets his left-hand drop back onto his stomach. Five watches it flop down with a thoughtful frown.</p><p>Five lets that information soak in for a minute, but something Klaus said doesn’t make sense to him. “What did you mean,” Five starts, squinting at Klaus. “That there are no ghosts for you to avoid here?”</p><p>Klaus groans again, rubbing at his eyes before he abruptly sits up. “Alright, little man,” he says, gesturing widely to indicate the sky, and yard, and house. “Where do you think we are right now?”</p><p><em>“Do not</em> call me little,” Five huffs as he rolls up to a sitting position, waking Mr. Pennycrumb in the process. Five rubs an apology along the dog’s ears as he takes a moment to really examine their surroundings.</p><p>The actual yard seems to go on and on, flat-land and green-grass barricaded by woods on all sides, large trees spanning along the outside of the whole property as far as Five can see. There’s a slight incline from where Five and Klaus are sitting, and Five can just make out a glittering pond and the shapes of (what he’s fairly sure are <em>cows)</em> wandering around it.</p><p>Five has no idea where they are, but he supposes that’s the point.</p><p>“Nowhere,” Five says, turning back to Klaus. “We’re out in the middle of nowhere.”</p><p>Klaus gives a laugh that sounds half-way to being a scoff. “Damn,” he huffs, scratching at his goatee. “Should’ve known you’d say something like that,” he mumbles, which wasn’t the response Five was expecting.  </p><p>“What?” Five asks, cocking an eyebrow.</p><p>“Got it in one, Five-o,” Klaus says, stretching his arms out above his head, gesturing around them. “We are out in the absolute middle of nowhere.”</p><p>Five’s second eyebrow climbs to meet the first. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”</p><p>“We’re in a pocket-dimension,” comes Allison’s voice from behind them, startling both Five and Klaus, Mr. Pennycrumb perks up and trots over to her.</p><p>“Or at least, that’s what he called it,” she continues, sitting herself on Five’s other side, her dress pooling out around her as she hands Five a large polka-dot mug.</p><p>Five takes a tentative sip of soup before he asks, “who?”</p><p>“The man who built this place,” Allison says, rubbing at Mr. Pennycrumb as he nuzzles her. “It’s a pocket of time and space. It doesn’t interact with the outside world, but… it isn’t fully separate either.” Allison makes a face, scrunching her lips. “It’s hard to explain.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Klaus agrees, drawing out the word. “We’re kind of a step away from Earth. Like, right next door.”</p><p>Five knows he’s making an idiotic face right now, but he can’t help it. Since the moment he set foot in this place it’s been one phenomenal surprise after another. His brain is already tripping over numbers, his fingers itching for a piece of chalk.</p><p>Five opens his mouth to start spouting his questions and is promptly interrupted by Klaus.</p><p>“Nah-<em>ah-uh,”</em> Klaus enunciates, wagging a finger in Five’s face. “I know that expression,” he says, “and like Diego said before, we aren’t the right people to explain. So give it up kiddo.”</p><p>Five growls a frustrated breath and smacks a hand against his thigh, jostling the soup in his mug. “You’re <em>infuriating,”</em> Five gripes.</p><p>Klaus bats his eyelashes at Five, “I try my best.”</p><p>“How about I ask Herb for the math they used to build this place,” Allison suggests before they can devolve into a bickering match. “That way you can see it for yourself.”</p><p>Five pauses for a moment before giving a decisive nod. Something like butterflies flutter in his stomach at the prospect of getting to see the math for himself. Five has to take a sip of soup to hide his pleased smile before he asks, “so ‘Herb’ is the person who built this place?”</p><p>“He isn’t the one that came up with the equations, if that’s what you’re asking,” Allison says. “But he helped oversee the construction of The Farm. He’ll have the math you want.”</p><p>Five hums into his mug. It makes sense that there would be multiple people who worked on the construction and fabrication of this place. But Five would like to talk to the mastermind himself.</p><p>“You’re such a weird kid,” Klaus abruptly says, drawing Five out of his musing.</p><p>Five eyes his brother for a second, he doesn’t know what prompted Klaus to point that out <em>now</em> of all times. It isn’t as if it’s a secret that they’re all odd, they’re a family of anomalies and glitches in the spacetime continuum.  </p><p>Five came to terms with his so-called ‘weirdness’ long ago.</p><p>“No weirder than you were,” Five shoots back.</p><p>Klaus snorts, “touché, petit frére.”</p><p>Suddenly there’s a hand stroking through Five’s hair, making him jolt in surprise. He rocks slightly to the side, shooting Allison a bewildered look over his shoulder.</p><p>“Sorry,” she mumbles, pulling her hand away as she gives him a hesitant smile. “I was just… What do you think about a haircut?”</p><p>The abruptness of the question catches Five off guard. He reaches up to absently run his fingers through his hair. It almost reaches his shoulders, straggly and uneven at the ends.</p><p>That had been Five’s doing.</p><p>It had been about eight months into the Apocalypse that Five had grown absolutely sick and tired of his hair constantly getting in his face and eyes. So Five had grabbed the rusty pair of scissors from his med-kit and just started snipping.</p><p>It was mostly a disaster, as most things were in the Apocalypse. But chopping off one’s own hair without a mirror is always unadvisable.</p><p>Five never saw what he looked like, but Dolores had made fun of him for a month.</p><p>“I guess,” Five says, he hadn’t really thought about a haircut, but he very well could, it’s an option now. Grace was always the one that gave them haircuts as kids, he could ask her. </p><p>“I worked in a salon for a few years,” Allison says, “I could cut it for you.”</p><p>Five raises a skeptical eyebrow. <em>“You</em> worked in a salon?”  </p><p>“Don’t look so surprised,” Allison crosses her arms over her chest, cocking her own eyebrow at Five.</p><p>“Yeah, Allie is a true stylist,” Klaus chips in as he flips some of his own hair over his shoulder. “She’s the one that convinced me to get highlights.”</p><p>Five shoots Klaus one of his sharper smirks. “You mean to tell me that was intentional?”</p><p>Klaus smacks a hand to his heart, gasping in mock-outrage. “You wound me, Fivey.”</p><p>Five’s smirk bends into something a little more genuine. He turns away from Klaus, shrugging his shoulders at Allison, says, “fine. I suppose you couldn’t possibly make it look any worse.”</p><p>“Your faith in my skills is overwhelming,” Allison deadpans.</p><p>Klaus snickers, “there’s the Five we know and love.”</p><hr/><p>They end up in the bathroom on the top floor.</p><p>Klaus hops up on the counter the moment they walk in, lounged out on the opposite side of where Five gently places Dolores, his legs lazily swinging back and forth as he fiddles with some hair-ties.</p><p>Five is sitting on the stool Allison dragged in, nylon cape wrapped around his neck while Allison stands behind him, brushing out the tangles in his hair.</p><p>This is the first time that Five has really looked at himself in over two years. Sure, he would catch his reflection every once and a while in the Apocalypse, in the shards of broken glass or in the light of murky water.</p><p>But Five never gave himself more than a passing glance. What did it matter what he looked like? He had never cared about his appearance before, and slowly starving to death in the Apocalypse did not inspire any thoughts of vanity. Five had much more important things to do than to wonder how he may have changed in those two years.  </p><p>Seeing himself now, Five still agrees with that mindset.</p><p>Because Five looks just as he knew he would. His hair is straggly and unkempt looking, framing Five’s too gaunt face. His cheekbones are sharp enough to cut, and the bags under his eyes look like their own bruises.</p><p>Five has to tamp down the urge to glare at his own reflection. He averts his eyes instead, moving his gaze up to Allison. She’s fully concentrated, her eyes slightly squinted and assessing as she snips at his hair, testing the length of the strands as she goes.</p><p>It feels odd, having someone running their hands through his hair, the feeling of fingertips touching his scalp and brushing little strands of hair away from his face.</p><p>Five keeps having to repress twitches and shivers. He’s glad for the cape wrapped around him, it’s doing a fantastic job of hiding the goosebumps that are running up and down his skin.</p><p>Klaus and Allison are talking about something mundane that lost Five’s interest almost the moment they started the conversation. But the din of their voices in the background of his thoughts is calming, and the repetitive motion of Allison cutting his hair is somewhat soothing.</p><p>Five had fought to keep himself stiff and still for the first ten minutes of his haircut, but now he lets his shoulders relax, his eyes drifting closed.</p><p>Five wasn’t sure he’d ever have this again.</p><p>It makes his chest ache, the fact that he is here, sitting amongst his siblings, getting to just <em>be.</em> It still doesn’t feel real, every time Five looks at them, every time he speaks to them, every time he touches them—</p><p>“What’s this?” Allison’s fingers skim over a sensitive patch of skin on the side of Five’s head, pulling him out of his thoughts.</p><p>Allison catches his gaze in the mirror as Five opens his eyes, her eyebrows scrunched in concern. It takes Five a moment to fully register her question. “A scar,” he mumbles.</p><p>“I <em>meant,”</em> Allison’s tone clearly indicates that she is mentally rolling her eyes at him. “What is it from?”</p><p>Five glances away from Allison, finding Klaus watching them from his place on the vanity. He gives Five a soft smile when their eyes meet.</p><p>“Building collapsed,” Five says, keeping his voice monotone and detached. “I got caught in the debris,” he pulls his gaze away from Klaus and over to Dolores. “I took care of it.”</p><p>Allison’s fingers brush over the patch of skin again, the quarter-sized scar that had been hidden by Five’s hair. He had almost forgotten it was even there.  </p><p>“This feels like a burn wound,” Allison murmurs from over his shoulder.</p><p>Five keeps his eyes locked on Dolores so he won’t have to make eye-contact with Klaus or Allison. He blows out a breath through his nose and twists the fabric over his knees between his fingers. “Like I said, I took care of it.”</p><p>“You cauterized it,” Klaus says, voice soft.</p><p>“Hard to stitch up head wounds yourself,” Five shrugs, “had to stop the bleeding.”</p><p>There’s a long moment of silence, one that Five doesn’t bother to interrupt. He can feel Allison and Klaus having a silent conversation over the top of his head, but Five’s too tired to care.</p><p>Allison’s hand comes up to cup Five’s cheek, drawing his eyes back to hers in the mirror. The feeling of it is a little startling, her palm on his face, soft and warm and alive.</p><p>Five had held Allison’s hand when it was stiff and cold and lifeless. He had clutched to her fingers as he wept and apologized profusely. Because Five was small and weak, and he had accidentally dropped her when he was trying to lower her into her grave.</p><p>He had tried so hard to lay Allison down gently, but Five was so much shorter than she was, and he had already been without food for days at that point.</p><p>She had slipped from his grasp and fallen to the dirt with a resounding <em>‘fwump’ </em>that seemed to echo around Five. And Five had stood there, frozen and shocked, his ears ringing and skin crawling, something shattering in his chest.   </p><p>He had fallen next to Allison’s crumpled form, ash and tears coating his throat as he sobbed over the top of her, <em>“I’m sorry . . . I’m so sorry, Allison . . . Oh god—oh god, I’m so, so sorry.”</em></p><p>It took Five a considerable amount of time to pull himself together, but once the roaring in his ears stopped and the shaking in his limbs had slowed, Five had gathered his remaining strength and half-carried half-dragged Allison the rest of the way into her too shallow grave.  </p><p>Five tried his best to make her look dignified in death. He had angled her limbs into something that looked less painful, and then he draped her hair over her shoulders. Ignoring the blood and brains in the strands that were turning the blonde a ruddy brown. Five had done his best to give Allison a proper burial.</p><p>But he will never forget the moment he dropped her.</p><p>“You did a good job,” Allison says, tone just above a whisper. “Surviving out there all by yourself,” her voice wavers on the words ‘by yourself,’ and Five feels a prickling behind his eyes.</p><p>“Yeah man,” Klaus says with utter conviction, “you totally kicked the Apocalypse’s ass.”   </p><p>Five gives a bark of laughter that surprises even himself. Five half-heartedly smothers the sound behind his palm as his gaze darts over to Klaus. Something in Five’s chest loosens though, and it’s suddenly easier to breathe. “<em>Technically</em> you’re the ones that kicked its ass.”</p><p>Klaus considers this as Allison goes back to cutting Five’s hair, her nails skimming over his scalp in a deliberate move that makes Five’s shoulders hunch and his skin tingle.</p><p>“Hm,” Klaus taps a finger to his chin, nodding his head to himself. “Well, we might’ve kicked its ass, but you made the Apocalypse <em>your absolute bitch!”</em></p><p>Five gives a spluttering scoff that would like to be a laugh, shooting Klaus a disbelieving look with just his eyes as Allison tips Five’s head to the side and trims around his ear.</p><p>“Like I said before,” Five smirks, “you are truly a poet, Klaus.”</p><hr/><p>When they were very little, (young enough that Five’s memories are hazy and distorted with the mindset of someone who didn’t understand what was in store for them) he used to sneak out of his room in the middle of the night and crawl into one of his siblings’ beds.</p><p>Five hadn’t liked sleeping alone back then. The Academy was always large and daunting. But as a four-year-old, it had seemed like a never-ending maze of forbidden rooms and twisting hallways.</p><p>It had made Five feel itchy and jittery having to be alone, locked in his bedroom with electrodes glued to his head, and the shadows pressing in around him.</p><p>So Five would peel the wires off of himself, grab his favorite space-themed blanket, and blink into one of his brothers’ or sisters’ rooms.</p><p>At the age of four, it was getting easier for him to spatial-jump, but it was still a new ability, and Five didn’t have a lot of control over it. So for a while, Five slept with Six the most. He was on the same floor as Five, making him the easiest to get to.</p><p>But then Five figured out that if he blinked into the hallway instead, he could unlock the doors from the outside, letting his siblings out.</p><p>It had been easier then, because Five no longer had to pick and choose.</p><p>Seven didn’t like the quiet or the dark, it was a new fear of hers that she had gotten after she came back from being sick, she didn’t like being alone.  </p><p>Four was the same way, he said that he saw monsters in his room, things that looked like people, but weren’t, and he was afraid of being left with them.</p><p>So Five would unlock their doors and sneak in, pulling Four out of his bed and leading him into Seven’s room where the three of them would curl up together.</p><p>It went like that for a while; Five would spend nights curled next to Two, other’s squeezed between Three and Six, some while holding One’s hand, but mostly, he spent them sleeping with Four and Seven.</p><p>That is, until Reginald put a stop to it.</p><p>At the time, Five had been a naïve child, the cover of night, with quiet whispers, and tiptoeing feet, had made him think that their father hadn’t known about their sneaking into each other’s bedrooms.</p><p>But Five now knows he must have, Reginald would have known the entire time. The moment that Five first started blinking out of his room. Maybe he was watching them night after night, maybe it was a test of some sort, maybe he was studying their behavior.</p><p>Whatever the case, Five will never know why their father let the act of disobedience go on for as long as he did.    </p><p>Until one day he made it very clear that they were to all stay in their own rooms and sleep in their own beds, anymore rebellious acts would be met with punishment.</p><p>Five hadn’t listened, of course.</p><p>Three days later, when Five couldn’t stand to be in his own room by himself, cold and missing the feeling of sleeping next to his brothers and sisters, he had blinked into Seven’s room.</p><p>Their father had stormed into the room not three minutes later. Unlocking the door and ripping Five out of Seven’s sheets with an iron grip around his arm.</p><p>He had ignored Seven and Five’s weak protests, slamming the door shut on Seven’s tear-streaked face, turning the lock before he marched Five back upstairs.</p><p>Five hadn’t struggled, he had hung limply from his father’s hand, letting himself be led. Reginald’s hold had been strong enough to bruise, and Five, not for the first time, had been scared of what his dad might do.</p><p>His ears had been ringing, his heart pounding, drowning out the lecture that his father was in the middle of giving.</p><p>When Reginald had pushed him into bed it was nothing like how their old nannies or Grace would tuck them in. He didn’t put Five under the covers, and he didn’t gently smooth down his hair or tell him goodnight.</p><p>He had waited until Five clumsily climbed onto the mattress and then he had ordered Five to sit still as he replaced the electrodes to Five’s forehead.</p><p>Five had thought that would be the end of it, but then his father pulled something from his pocket and demanded that Five give him his hand.</p><p>The metal of the handcuffs had been cold and too tight around Five’s wrist. Reginald had snapped one end to Five’s left hand and the other to the headboard of the bed, and then he had stood and left without a word.  </p><p>Five had laid there, head buzzing and skin crawling, his heart in his throat, listening as his father locked his door from the outside before walking away.</p><p>Leaving Five alone and chained to his bed.</p><p>Five slept that way for two months after that, and even when he was no longer cuffed to his headboard, Five didn’t dare sneak back into his siblings’ beds.</p><p>The point being, that Five has slept by himself for most of his life, long before he ever ended up in the Apocalypse.</p><p>He has no issue with it.</p><p>It isn’t a problem.</p><p>He’s fine.</p><p>Five rolls over for the hundredth time, slapping at his pillow before he rips it out from under his head and angrily throws it away from himself. It smacks into the bars of the loft and wilts dejectedly to the floor. </p><p><em>‘Having trouble sleeping?’</em> Dolores asks, because sometimes she likes to point out the obvious when she thinks that Five is doing something particularly stupid or childish.</p><p><em>“No,”</em> Five grouches at her sarcastically, stuffing his face into the mattress.</p><p>It’s too soft.</p><p>Every time Five begins to drift, starts to sink into unconsciousness, he finds himself jerking back awake. The feeling of falling yanking him from sleep or the sensation of being swallowed up by the mattress chasing him from his dreams.</p><p><em>‘It’s the quiet, isn’t it?’ </em>Dolores asks, voice gentle.</p><p>Five turns his head to look up at her, he can just make out the shape of Dolores’ face in the dark. She’s propped up against the wall, watching over Five as he tries and fails to fall asleep.</p><p>Five lets out a sigh, feeling himself sink further into the bed. “Yeah,” he whispers back.</p><p>In the Apocalypse, Five learned the meaning of true silence.  </p><p>For the first few months, silence hadn’t been an issue. There was a constant uproar of rushing wind and raining ash, accompanied by an onslaught of violent storms like nothing Five had ever experienced before.</p><p>Lightning would lash across the smog covered sky, followed by thunder so loud Five could feel it rattling his bones. The storms were strong enough to topple buildings, to set off every working car alarm in the city, to sweep Five straight off his feet. The lightning would cause even more fires and the wind and thunder would help to spread the destruction and chaos.</p><p>In those moments, it was like the world was screaming in anguish, and Five was the only one left to hear its agonized cries.</p><p>But other times, when the wind settled and the dust cleared, when there was no raging storm to cover over the silence of a dead world- the quiet was so utterly complete, so absolute, that Five would find himself having trouble breathing.</p><p>It was in those moments, those hours, those days, that Five would sit with only the sound of his own heartbeat for company, so utterly aware of his own pulse.</p><p>The only heartbeat in the entire world.</p><p>It was the silence, Five had learned, it was the silence that slowly and methodically ripped apart the mind, that drove a person insane.</p><p>“Yeah,” Five agrees, “it’s the quiet.” He rolls over onto his back, staring up at the silhouettes of the rafters above him.</p><p>The quiet here is nothing in comparison to the silences that Five has had to endure before. If he listens hard enough, he can hear the humming of the house, can just make out the creaking of the floorboards, the settling of the walls.</p><p>But he has to focus in order to hear those things.</p><p>The moment Five closes his eyes and allows himself to drift, he’s suddenly alone with his heartbeat, and then he’s jerking awake in an unfamiliar bed that’s far too soft.</p><p>Five’s fingers are itching to hold a piece of chalk, numbers and equations filling up his head. It’s always been easier to focus on the math in times like this. Because if Five concentrates on how loud his thoughts are then his mind can almost drown out the silence around him.</p><p><em>‘You’re anxious,’</em> Dolores says, always blunt in her observations.</p><p>“I’m not,” Five rasps back, rubbing at his throbbing head. It makes him feel a little better, talking out loud. “I’m just tired.”</p><p><em>‘Then sleep,’</em> she says, calling his bluff.</p><p>“I’m <em>trying,”</em> Five snaps, glaring at her through the dark. “It’s not that easy, you know that.”</p><p>Because out of everyone, Dolores is the one that knows about Five’s relationship with sleep. How finicky and selective it is. How he fluctuates between days without sleep before the inevitable crash, or working himself so hard, that when he does finally lay down it’s more like an oblivion rather than sleep at all.</p><p>There have been moments, of weakness, of desperation, of…of just wanting it all to <em>stop,</em> where Five had drowned his sorrows in a bottle of whatever he could get his hands on. And then he’d sleep the slumber of a drunk, because it was hard to think or have nightmares when he could hardly hold a thought at all.</p><p>But Five and Dolores don’t speak of those moments, because although there haven’t been many, they always argue afterward, and Five hates it when they fight.</p><p><em>‘Alright,’</em> Dolores sighs, <em>‘get up.’</em></p><p>Five turns to her, rolling onto his side. “What?”</p><p><em>‘Get up,’</em> she repeats herself. <em>‘We both know you aren’t falling asleep anytime soon. So you might as well get up now.’</em></p><p>Five pauses for a moment, contemplating, and then he flings the comforter off of himself and blinks back down to the main floor of his room, bare feet smacking against the hardwood floor as Five wobbles unsteadily for a second.</p><p>Having access to unrestricted food has already made a tremendous difference in Five’s stamina and energy-levels, it’s much easier to warp than it was before, but Five is still finding his balance.</p><p>It’s been a long time since Five has been able to spatial-jump with impunity. For the past two years Five has been very meticulous with his jumps. He could no longer blink from place to place or be so cavalier when it came to using his power.</p><p>Suddenly Five couldn’t rely on his abilities anymore. They were always there, just in case, the thing Five kept in his back pocket, the ace up his sleeve, but they were for emergency use only.</p><p>(Like that time Five was searching through the remains of a bakery, and the roof caved in with only a low groan of warning. And Five blinked himself out of there with only seconds to spare, and then proceeded to vomit on the ash-covered sidewalk as the building crumbled behind him)</p><p>Five’s jumps were rarer and harder to come by as Five’s malnourishment grew worse and worse, and with his slow descent into starvation, came the realization that each time he used his ability he was killing himself all the faster.</p><p>Getting to use his powers so casually now, after all this time, makes Five feel a mixture of achy nostalgia and prickly exhilaration that he can’t quite explain.</p><p>Mr. Pennycrumb perks up from his place in his dog-bed, uncurling himself as his tail wags at the sight of Five. Five crouches down and carefully pets Mr. Pennycrumb, he had forgotten the dog was sleeping in here.</p><p>“Hello,” Five greets him, “sorry I woke you.”</p><p>Five looks around the darkened bedroom, there isn’t much more to explore, he had picked apart the room this evening after dinner. Combing through the books and peeking into the desk draws, glancing through the wardrobe and poking around for loose floorboards.</p><p>Five glances to the bedroom door, he could go to the library on the second floor and camp out there for the night, or maybe he could steal some books and go sit in the solarium and wait for the sun to come up.  </p><p>Five looks back to Mr. Pennycrumb. “Let’s go,” he says, patting his thigh to beckon the dog to him.</p><p>Five falters briefly before he turns the handle, it feels odd to be able to just <em>open</em> his bedroom door in the middle of the night— Five stands there, stupidly hesitating in the doorway, until Mr. Pennycrumb nudges the back of his knee, snapping Five back to himself.</p><p>This place isn’t like the Academy; Five’s door is not locked from the outside, and if someone finds him wandering out of his bedroom in the middle of the night, Five won’t be punished for it.</p><p>Five steps out into the shadowed hall and tiptoes toward the stairs. The instinct to sneak is still ingrained in him, and it’s hard not to instantly blink to where he wants to go rather than walk there, but Five wants Pennycrumb with him, and he isn’t sure how the dog would do with spatial-jumping yet.</p><p>Five is almost to the stairs when there’s a soft <em>‘click’</em> and then the bathroom door is opening. The flash of abrupt light ruins Five’s night vision, he hisses a breath as he takes a wobbly step back, rubbing at his eyes to alleviate the sting.  </p><p>“Shouldn’t you be sleeping?” Diego asks, voice scratched and groggy sounding.</p><p>Five drops his hand from his face, crossing his arms over his chest. “Shouldn’t you?” he retorts.</p><p>Diego tilts his head at Five, some of the softness of sleep slipping away as he studies Five. Five tries not to fidget under Diego’s stare, but he suddenly feels ridiculous- standing here in nothing but thin pajama pants and a t-shirt, wandering the halls in the middle of the night.</p><p>Diego sighs, “c’mon,” he says, making his way toward the stairs.</p><p>When they were kids that might’ve been a command, Diego had a tendency to do that when they were younger, when he was trying to prove himself or compete with Luther. He would try to boss the others around, (would try to boss <em>Five</em> around) because Diego was Two and Five was Five, and Diego still believed that counted for something.   </p><p>But Five had started ignoring his position in the lineup when he was seven years old, and it never mattered to him what number he was, because Five knew where he stood, and it definitely wasn’t under anyone else.</p><p>But Diego’s tone isn’t demanding, he isn’t giving Five an order, so Five follows after him.</p><p>Diego is much better at sneaking now than he was when they were kids, the two of them are almost silent as they make it to the second floor and tiptoe past Klaus and Vanya’s bedrooms, the only noise is the soft clicking of Mr. Pennycrumb’s claws on the hardwood.</p><p>Diego slips into the family-room that Five had briefly seen earlier, flicking on a lone lamp that paints half the room a muted yellow. Five stands in the doorway, watching as Diego marches over to a cabinet and starts pulling out bedding.</p><p>“What are you doing?” Five asks.</p><p>Diego drops the blankets onto the wrap-around couch and jabs a finger over to a shelf. “Go pick out a movie,” he says, “we’re gonna watch somethin’.”</p><p>Five hesitates for a second, fingers still holding to the doorframe. When he left his bedroom, Five hadn’t anticipated running into someone, and he definitely hadn’t imagined himself having a movie night with Diego.</p><p>But, well, Five’s glad for it anyway.</p><p>Five walks over to the shelf and starts parsing through the movie options, but they’re in these oddly thin containers, ones that are far too small to hold a tape in. When Five pops one open there’s a rounded disk, a picture on one side, and a reflective plastic on the other.</p><p>Five stares down at it with pursed lips and a furrowed brow. “What is this?” he asks, holding it up for Diego to see.</p><p>Diego glances over at Five from where he’s rummaging for something. “Oh, that’s a show called ‘Friends’,” he says, turning back away as he talks. “We don’t exactly have cable out here, so if we want something, we have to buy a hard copy.”</p><p>Five shakes his head to himself- it still feels weirdly wonderful that his hair doesn’t brush against his chin or get in his eyes when he does that. It makes Five feel more like himself. He runs a hand through the shorter strands, letting them tickle against his palm- and then Five blinks hard, mentally scoffing at himself for losing focus over something as trivial as his <em>hair.</em></p><p>“No, I mean,” Five starts again, “what is <em>this</em>,” he waves the disk around.</p><p>Diego’s incredulous expression melts away suddenly, <em>“oh,”</em> he breathes out. “Right. You wouldn’t… Uh, that’s a disk.”</p><p>If looks could kill Diego would be a goner.</p><p>“There like—there like tapes?” Diego goes on, “the movie or show gets imprinted on it with a laser, and uh, then you put it in a DVD player— which is like a computer, kind of, and then it reads it and then…plays it.”</p><p>There is a long pause, and then Five says, “…what.”</p><p>“So that’s another thing,” Diego says, “the current timeline we’re in is very similar to the timeline we grew up in. But there are some differences. A really big one is that technology has improved. Like, a <em>lot</em>.” He pauses, huffing a laugh to himself. “That was actually a pretty big shock to us, we suddenly didn’t know how anything worked. There were no payphones or VHS tapes or typewriters. Cars were— Cars were like something out of the <em>future</em>, and don’t even get me started on cellphones.”</p><p>Five stares up at his brother, trying to process what has just been told to him. “You live in a technologically advanced society, full of futuristic innovations?”</p><p>Diego nods his head, “yeah dude, it’s—it’s pretty crazy. Took us years to get used to it.”</p><p>“How does it work?” Five asks, flashing the disk at Diego.</p><p>So Diego shows him how to turn on the ‘DVD player’ and insert the disk, haltingly explaining how it works with his limited knowledge of the technology itself.</p><p>Then the big rectangle on the wall lights up and Five jolts where he’s standing. “That’s the <em>TV?”</em> he asks, staring up at it in wonder.</p><p>“Yeah,” Diego says from where he’s crouched down, searching for the correct remote. “What did you think it was?”</p><p>Five thought it was a mirror, a stupid one obviously, one that was put up more for decoration than functionality. But there’s no way he’s telling Diego <em>that.</em> “I hadn’t noticed it,” he lies, and pretends he doesn’t see Diego shooting him a <em>look</em> that means he doesn’t buy it for a second.</p><p>They end up watching something called ‘Dirty Jobs’, which is both fairly disgusting and mildly entertaining. Diego makes them some cheap chocolate milk, with one of those syrups that you have to stir in yourself and sticks to the sides.</p><p>The chocolate milk is cold, but the blanket Diego dumped on Five is warm. The only light is coming from the TV, which illuminates the room in gray-blue shadows. Mr. Pennycrumb is curled up next to Five, his soft snores blending in with the muffled voices of the TV.</p><p>Five has nodded off twice already, but each time he twitches back awake, snapping his eyes open and jerking his head upright. The third time it happens Diego is there, gently pulling Five’s empty glass from his fingers.</p><p>Five blinks up at him tiredly, but he can’t quite think of what to say.</p><p>“You’re fine,” Diego tells him as he places Five’s glass in a cupholder. “Go to sleep.”</p><p>Five’s eyes slip closed, but he squints them open a second later. “Course m’fine,” he mumbles, his eyes falling shut again. “I’m a’ways fine.”</p><p>“Mm-hm,” Diego hums as he sits right next to Five. The couch dips with his weight and Five helplessly slides into his brother.</p><p>“What’re y’doin’?” Five asks, his face smushed into Diego’s side.</p><p>Diego’s arm drops onto Five’s back without warning, his fingers curling over Five’s ribs through the blanket. “Shush,” Diego whispers from above him, “I’m watching.”</p><p>It’s impossible not to fall asleep this time, with the flickering lights of the TV and the hushed voice of a narrator. With the weight of Mr. Pennycrumb on Five’s feet and the feeling of soft blankets around him. With the warmth of Diego at his side and the feeling of him breathing under Five’s cheek.</p><p>If Five listens hard enough he can even hear Diego’s heartbeat mixing with his own. Two pulses instead of one, because Five isn’t alone anymore, and the silence can’t get to him.</p><p>This time when Five falls asleep he doesn’t jerk back awake.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thank you all for being so patient with me! Please drop a comment if you can, they give me life. :)</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Something I've learned while writing this fic, I will never be able to spell 'apocalypse' without spellcheck there to bail me out. </p><p> </p><p>Kudos and Comments are an author's high, please facilitate my addiction. ;D</p></blockquote></div></div>
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